2012-11-13 — /travelprnews.com/ — Tourism Australia and China Eastern Airlines sign up to A$9m marketing deal
Key facts
- Tourism Australia has signed a major aviation marketing deal in China which will see close to A$9 million invested over the next three years with major China international carrier, China Eastern Airlines.
- The new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed today prior to the official opening of the Greater China Travel Mission 2012 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Shanghai.
Key quotes
- “This agreement and status of China Eastern will give Australian tourism even greater strategic reach in this our most valuable tourism export market. China Eastern with its large, combined China domestic and international route network is incredibly well linked to better connect travellers between greater China and Australia.” Andrew McEvoy, Managing Director, Tourism Australia.
Full story
Tourism Australia has signed a major aviation marketing deal in China which will see close to A$9 million invested over the next three years with major China international carrier, China Eastern Airlines.
The new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed today prior to the official opening of the Greater China Travel Mission 2012 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Shanghai.
The significant MoU agreement was jointly signed in Shanghai by Tourism Australia’s Managing Director, Andrew McEvoy and Vice Chairman and President of China Eastern Airlines, Mr Ma Xulun.
Under the agreement the two parties will each contribute A$4.3 million towards joint marketing initiatives. The deal will also see China Eastern providing flights to support travel industry famils, trade shows and media trips to promote inbound travel to Australia.
The agreement follows China Eastern’s recent launch of its latest Australian direct service – Shanghai to Cairns, which commenced on 30 October 2012.
China Eastern is one of China’s ‘big three’ air transport companies with a global network serving 993 destinations, including a global route network covering Chinese domestic and international destinations connecting Asia, Europe, the Americas and the Asia Pacific.
“This agreement and status of China Eastern will give Australian tourism even greater strategic reach in this our most valuable tourism export market,” Mr McEvoy said.
“China Eastern with its large, combined China domestic and international route network is incredibly well linked to better connect travellers between greater China and Australia.
“Tourism Australia’s own approach under the Tourism 2020 strategy of targeting the country’s emerging middle classes through China’s primary cities, including Shanghai, as well as steady expansion into more secondary cities over time, is well supported through this key agreement.”
Mr McEvoy said that China Eastern Airlines had been committed to the Australian market since 1996 when it first launched services to Australia, and last year carried almost a quarter of all Chinese visitors to our country.
He said that China had now overtaken the United Kingdom as Australia’s second largest inbound market by volume, and remained the most economically valuable, today worth close to A$4 billion annually.
“With over 600,000 Chinese visitors visiting our country each year, large aviation partnerships with China’s leading airlines, such as China Eastern, remain critical for Australia to tap into the country’s enormous tourism potential, expand people to people relations and achieve long term success for our industry,” Mr McEvoy said.
China Eastern Airlines currently operates 16 flights per week to Australia: daily services to both Sydney and Melbourne and a new, recently commenced two-per-week direct service to Cairns. This will increase to 18 weekly flights from mid December, when the airline’s daily Sydney services (7 per week) are increased to nine (9) flights per week.
Mr McEvoy said that China Eastern’s new Cairns flights were an indication of the airline’s commitment to the Australian market and said that Tourism Australia was helping promote the route in partnership with Tourism Queensland, Tourism Tropical North Queensland and Cairns International Airport; part of a concerted effort to speak with ‘one voice’ internationally.
He said the broader marketing agreement would also complement the latest phase of Tourism Australia’s There’s nothing like Australia global campaign, currently rolling out across more than 20 international markets, including Greater China.
The global campaign launch was held in China Eastern’s home base of Shanghai in June 2012 and the television commercial and digital content had now been viewed online by tens of millions of people globally – including over 20 million in China alone.
Research undertaken in China by GfK Blue Moon on behalf of Tourism Australia and released this year showed that Australia is top of the destination wish list for Chinese travellers for long haul travel. Australia offers what the Chinese target customer wants – nature and laid back lifestyle with the comforts of a developed country – making it their number one ‘must visit’ long haul destination.
Total Chinese arrivals to Australia grew 17 per for the year ending September 2012, and the past 12 months has seen the total Chinese inbound market grow to a record 606,000 visitors. (Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics)
###
Contacts
Tourism Australia (China)
Zoe Lo
Marketing Communications Manager
P. +86 21 513 24521
E. zlo@tourism.australia.com
Tourism Australia
Simon Westaway
General Manager Corporate Affairs and Strategy
P. 02 9361 1319
E. swestaway@tourism.australia.com
W. http://www.media.australia.com