Traveling Blog: Business Events Australia Industry Update

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11 February 2022

Business Events Australia Update

What better way to kick off our first update of the year than with the announcement by our Prime Minister that Australia is reopening its borders to the world, with quarantine-free travel for fully vaccinated travellers commencing from 21 February 2022.

While travel to Australia has been on pause, the business events industry has persevered through an extremely challenging time. I am confident this news signals a positive step towards recovery and a brighter future for the industry.

At Tourism Australia, we are elated by the news and have already began activating our reopening strategy to optimally position Australia, support conversion and fast track recovery. We can’t wait to welcome back the world and to showcase why there’s nothing like Australia for business events.

Robin Mack

Latest News

Welcome back world

Tourism Australia is committed to ensuring customers know that from 21 February 2022, Australia is open for business and ready to welcome back delegates. The Prime Minister’s announcement was followed by a targeted public relations program generating significant coverage in business events media across the globe, including Boardroom (EU), Association Meetings International (UK), C&IT (UK), Northstar Meetings Group (USA) as well as featured on the home page of Prevue (USA), Meetings Today (USA) and CMW (UK). In addition, the ‘welcome back’ message was distributed across social media and will be followed by tailored content program in business events trade media, dedicated to showcasing the latest in Australia’s business events offering and why there’s nothing like Australia for business events. Over the coming weeks, a strategic program across marketing, distribution and partnerships will support conversion of short to mid-term business, fast track recovery and position Australia for long term growth. Stay tuned!

Tourism Australia releases results of the latest wave of domestic sentiment research

Tourism Australia’s latest wave of domestic research confirms that despite COVID-19 restrictions towards the end of 2021 and the challenging start to 2022 with the Omicron variant, businesses are largely positive about the future of business events. In fact, 67 per cent of businesses are planning events in the next 6 to 12 months, up 5 per cent from October 2021. And whilst the proportion of decision makers planning events for the next 12 to 24 months has dropped slightly (down 7 per cent from October to 74 per cent), it still remains strong. This suggests that businesses are increasing focus on the short term, with 7 out of 10 corporate decision makers expressing the need to simply ‘get on with it’ when it comes to living with COVID-19 and the challenges it brings. However, the findings also show that COVID-19 remains an influencing factor in decision making. As the rollout of COVID-19 boosters continues, decision makers are mindful of the COVID-19 vaccination policies of venues, citing it to be the main factor influencing their decision making when planning interstate events. Read the latest research on the Business Events Website.

Australia Innovates

This month, Tourism Australia has launched the latest episode of Australia Innovates featuring Adam Gilmour, CEO and founder of Gilmore Space – an Australian rocket company emerging as a world leader in hybrid rocket technology with a goal to provide more affordable access to space. The documentary-style video series is part of a broader recovery strategy to position Australia as a leading business events destination and will be promoted to association customers in North America, the United Kingdom and Europe through targeted marketing activity across business events publications and social media. Australia Innovates assets, including videos, images and an infographic, are available for industry to use in their efforts to secure business events for Australia, for more information contact the Business Events Australia team.

Distribution update

Tourism Australia will be supporting Australian industry at a range of domestic and international trade activity over the coming months to drive awareness and consideration of Australia’s business events offering as well as providing platforms to help industry convert new business. Domestically, Get Local is taking place next week (15 to 16 February 2022) in Sydney, where Phillipa Harrison, Managing Director of Tourism Australia will deliver the opening address, and Tourism Australia will be attending AIME (21 to 23 March 2022) in Melbourne to support the Australian industry and the event.

Internationally, the Business Events Australia Asia Showcase is taking place from 8 to 11 March 2022; the hybrid event will provide Australian industry with a platform to meet virtually and do business with key agents and corporate customers from the Greater China and South-South East Asia markets. During the event, a series of networking events will take place in market to demonstrate to buyers why there’s nothing like Australia for business events. IMEX Frankfurt is taking place from 31 May to 2 June 2022 and is the key exhibition for incentive travel, meetings and events and where international business events planners gather to do business. Registrations are now open to join the Australia stand at IMEX Frankfurt this year. For more information on Australia’s trade show activity, including IBTM Asia Pacific’s new dates, visit the Business Events Australia website.

Business Events ASP module

With the opportunity to reach travel agents who deliver business events for corporate clients in international markets including the United States, United Kingdom and across Asia, Tourism Australia will be testing a new business events module on the Aussie Specialist Program (ASP) later this month. ASP is a free online training resource for international and domestic frontline travel agents, designed to equip them with relevant, up-to-date information and showcase new regions, destinations and experiences within Australia. The business events module will provide agents with an introduction to business events in Australia including our key destinations.