Tourism Australia unite for aviation capacity

In an effort to attract new international aviation capacity Tourism Australia has taken the lead to promote with ‘one voice’ at Asia’s aviation route development forum in China next month.

Representing Australia are eight international airports including Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane, Perth, Melbourne, Cairns, Darwin and Gold Coast.

Tourism Australia Managing Director Andrew McEvoy believes that ‘speaking with one voice’ and adopting a more ‘team Australia’ approach to aviation development is critical to Australia’s tourism industry.

“Through our industry’s Tourism 2020 growth strategy, Australian tourism has set a clear benchmark to double overnight visitor expenditure to up to A$140 billion annually by the end of this decade,” Mr McEvoy said.

Mr McEvoy said the key to achieving this is with a significant increase in aviation capacity, particularly from Asia and headed by China.

?“As we’ve seen recently with Scoot and Silk Air’s decisions to launch inaugural international services into Australia, and ongoing expansions by many major carriers now directly serving our country from Asia the ‘team Australia’ approach is popular with airlines.”

“In continuing to seek to make our case for new services and additional capacity to grow visitation to Australia, we are expanding our approach by working more closely with our key Australian airport partners at our international air gateways," he added.

Routes Asia VP and Commercial Nigel Mayes hopes Australia’s collective approach will be adopted by other countries.

“Air service development is a highly competitive environment and we would encourage others to take a leaf out of team Australia’s book by ensuring they provide a clear picture of what destinations and their airports have to offer,” Mr Mayes said.

Mr McEvoy said there has been significant increase in aviation capacity out of China and Asia to meet the growing demand for air travel.

“We know from leading edge research we recently commissioned that there is a huge desire to visit Australia amongst the middle and upper classes living in China’s secondary cities. Tourism Australia is seeking to target consumers in up to 30 of these Chinese cities between now and 2020.”

Routes Asia 2012 will be held on 15 to 17 April in Chengdu China, where over 500 delegates are expected to attend.

Source - etravelblackboardasia