Tourism Australia wants to attract cuisine-loving travellers

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Created on Wednesday, 18 September 2013 15:09

Written by Editorial staff

Tourism Australia has revealed that its "There's Nothing Like Australia" campaign, designed to promote Down Under's "warm and welcoming people and spectacular natural beauty," is proving successful overseas.

Andrew McEvoy, managing director of Tourism Australia, said that it's been launched in 25 countries and has been translated into an impressive 17 languages.

However, on Monday (September 16), Mr McEvoy announced that Tourism Australia was planning to take this campaign in a different, culinary direction.

At a presentation at Savour Australia 2013, he said that "There's Nothing Like Australia" would now be placing emphasis on the country's magnificent food and delicious wine, in the hope of attracting more cuisine-oriented tourists to our shores.

Mr McEvoy explained the reasoning behind Tourism Australia's decision, stating that "great food, wine and local cuisine is now a major factor in holiday decision making".

Extensive research conducted by Tourism Australia shows that 38 per cent of tourists and people travelling abroad on migration visas allow food and wine to dictate their holiday plans. 

This puts a country's culinary delights ahead of "world class beauty and natural environments" on visitors' checklists, which only got a top ranking from 37 per cent of travellers.

"There is a growing appetite (literally) globally for food and wine as part of the travel experience and Australia has all the right ingredients to capitalise on this opportunity - with the finest array of produce served in the most stunning locations in the world," said Mr McEvoy at Savour Australia 2013.

He said Australia's major challenge is getting people who have never visited our country to view it as a premiere destination for cuisine.

In a recent survey, those who have already visited Australia said the food and wine experiences we offer are second only to those of France. They even placed us ahead of Italy, which came in third place.

However, it seems that travellers who have not yet made it to our shores do not associate Australia with fine dining. Only 26 per cent of people who fell into this category expected Down Under to offer great food and wine.

That's why Tourism Australia is making an effort to spread the word about our country's dining culture.

If their campaign works, migration agents in Australia could be seeing an influx of cuisine-loving travellers looking for immigration visas!