German tour operator Tischler Reisen is publishing a new catalogue that includes Oceania and round-the-world trips. The catalogue has in excess of 100 pages, offering trips to Australia, New Zealand and the South Seas.
FDM Travel (Nordic) recently launched their new Australian brochure, with more than 40 pages of dedicated Australian content. Victoria is featured in the brochure, showcasing the Great Ocean Road, Phillip Island, Sovereign Hill, Ballarat and Melbourne city. Go here to view the brochure online. Best Tours has published a new 16-page brochure dedicated to day touring in Australia and New Zealand.
The affiliated branch of Travelhouse (currently located in Zurich) will move to the Hotelplan headquarters in Glattbrugg in Autumn 2008. The Hotelplan group will be re-branded to M-Travel Switzerland. Gaby Ruch (Hotelplan) and Dorothea Schnider (Skytours) will remain employed as Australia product managers.
Andy von der Crone has commenced employment with Boomerang Reisen/Pacific Tours in Zurich as co-office manager. Andy was formerly employed by Kuoni Aarau, FTI and Dreamtime Travel.
United Kingdom
Cox and Kings is launching an Australia and New Zealand program by the close of 2008. Europe product manager, Aaron Jennings advises that the new program will be released at the World Travel Market in November and will offer both escorted tours and tailor-made self-drive packages.
As a result of the merger between My Planet and Hannibal and Marco Polo in June 2007, travel agency MyPlanet has relocated to a new premises with Hannibal and Marco Polo in Aarhus.
Online retailer lastminute.com has had a 40% increase in hotel bookings this year as consumers become more confident to self-book hotels. It seems Britons are increasingly searching and booking hotels online, rather than booking packages through the traditional channels. The rapid growth has caused 4,000 new European hotels to contract with lastminute.com over the past 12 months.
New Zealand
Air New Zealand will increase its capacity to Melbourne from Auckland due to strong ongoing growth. From 26 October 2008, the Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday afternoon Auckland-Melbourne service will be operated by a 767-300 instead of an A320. A third Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday service will commence on 16 December 2008. As of 26 October 2008, Air New Zealand will also increase its direct services from Wellington with an additional weekly service to Melbourne on Fridays.
Stella Travel Services has announced that the Holiday Shoppe brand will be replaced by the internationally recognised Harvey World Travel brand. CEO Keith Stanley advised that the Holiday Shoppe members will benefit from being part of this fast-growing global brand that already has a strong presence in the UK, South African and Australian markets. Stella Travel Services also intends to support the global development of Travelscene.
Wicked, the Broadway musical coming to Melbourne this winter, was launched at Mikano Restaurant in Auckland on 6 April in collaboration with Tourism Victoria and Qantas. Producer John Frost and two key cast members flew to Auckland to perform live at the launch.
North America
Following the success of the 2007 inaugural G’Day Toronto, Vancouver recently hosted the largest celebration of Australian culture in Canada. From 3- 6 April 2008, G’Day Vancouver - Australia Week 2008 showcased Australia’s food, wine, culture, art, film, lifestyle, unique wildlife and natural environment. Australia Week launched a three-month exhibition of Australia’s unique wildlife and natural environments at Vancouver’s iconic Science World.
Tourism Victoria recently led the 2008 North America East and West Coast Sales Mission. This mission was designed to provide an opportunity for established Victorian industry to showcase key Melbourne/Victoria tourism experiences and reinforce sales relationships with North American wholesalers outside of general Australian industry events. Participants included representatives from the Colonial Tramcar Restaurant, Yarra Valley and the Dandenongs Tourism, Australian Wine Tours, Chateau Yering, Phillip island, Mornington Peninsula Tourism and Sovereign Hill who each provided training and updates to wholesalers in New York City, Philadelphia, Toronto, Vancouver, Seattle and Los Angeles.
Tourism Victoria, together with key US wholesaler Swain Tours will implement an online campaign to position Victoria as an ideal self-drive holiday destination to consumers across the United States and to generate bookings of Victorian self-drive itineraries.
The 2008 North American Roadshow concluded in Los Angeles on 9 April. During the two week roadshow, 210 agents were trained on Melbourne and Victoria's key tourism experiences and 35 media, wholesale partners and Aussie/Victorian specialists attended events held in New York and Los Angeles.
China
Three Shanghai ADS agents won the Shanghai Famous Travel Brand tourism award organised by the Shanghai Municipal Tourism Administrative Commission. Among the winners was Shanghai JinJiang Tours, which featured an itinerary highlighting Puffing Billy. This itinerary also won them an award in the 2006-2007 Tourism Victoria China Campaign Awards.
On 10 March 2008, Qantas commenced a twice-weekly direct service from Shanghai to Melbourne. A ceremony to mark the inaugural flight launch was held at the Radisson Xing Guo Hotel Shanghai on 6 March. Over 120 guests attended, including the Australian Consul General. This event follows a major cooperative marketing and PR campaign between Tourism Victoria and Qantas.
China Eastern Airlines increased its direct flight services to Melbourne from three to four times per week in March 2008.
Guangdong China Travel Service opened an Australian theme store in Guangzhou on 25 April 2008. This is first Aussie theme store for China and will be decorated with Tourism Australia brand images.
Hong Kong
Virgin Blue has appointed Mr Henry Cheng, Assistant Sales Manager as their General Sales Agent in Hong Kong to increase their presence in this market.
Tourism Victoria has recently launched a Melbourne, Be First tactical campaign with four leading group travel agents in Hong Kong. The campaign is aimed at rejuvenating travel interest to Melbourne by leveraging the new flights between Hong Kong and Melbourne with Qantas Airways.
Taiwan
Tiger Tour in Taiwan has a launched a new tour featuring horse and carriage rides and highlighting Melbourne's iconic trams.
Singapore/Malaysia
The Singapore/Malaysia Melbourne Plus Tourism Exchange was held from 29 April to 5 May and involved 30 key product planners from Singapore and Malaysia participating in a famil and workshop in Melbourne and regional Victoria. During the famil, the group visited Bendigo, Ballarat, the Yarra Valley, Phillip Island, Mornington Peninsula and Torquay. A workshop was held at Eureka Skydeck where 15 Victorian tourism operators met with the agents in one-on-one appointments. The agents expressed satisfaction with the activities and excellent feedback has been received.
Tourism Victoria hosted a Malaysian Airlines Golden Holidays Top Agent famil for eight trade partners in April. This joint famil with Tourism Tasmania involved senior staff from the travel companies that achieve the highest sales for the Golden Holidays brand. The group visited Melbourne, Sovereign Hill, the Yarra Valley and Phillip Island. Feedback from the group indicated that additional overnight stays in regional Victoria were likely to result from the famil.
Tourism Victoria conducted sales calls to 25 key agents in Indonesia to provide product updates and explore ways to influence their product development options with the aim of increasing Victoria’s share of this market. The products promoted included a seasonal three-day/two-night Melbourne itinerary to encourage length of stay in Victoria, a winter package which combines Melbourne with Mt Buller, a spring package combining Melbourne with the Yarra Valley and the Dandenongs and a summer package twinning Melbourne with Phillip Island.
It has been confirmed that Amway Indonesia will hold their annual conference in Melbourne in November 2009.
India
Victoria is set to star in yet another Bollywood film: the romantic comedy Main aur Mrs Khanna. Victoria made its Bollywood debut in Salaam Namaste in 2005 – the first Bollywood movie to be completely filmed in Australia. This was followed by Chak de India in 2006. These films were seen by audiences of 400 and 300 million respectively.
Being featured in Bollywood films is a great opportunity to build brand awareness of Melbourne and Victoria in India, which is one of our fastest growing inbound tourism markets. In 2007, over 32,000 visitors came from India to Victoria, 10.9% more than in 2006. Tourism Victoria, in partnership with Melbourne Airport, has negotiated for a range of prominent Melbourne and regional destinations to be featured in the film alongside its all-star cast. Marketing opportunities to cross-promote the film via the trade and other partners are also being explored.
Gulf countries
Tourism Victoria was joined by the Victorian Snowfields in presenting to the travel industry and consumers of the Arabian travel market in Dubai in early May. Prior to this, Tourism Victoria partnered with Tourism Australia and the states of Queensland, Western Australia and New South Wales at the Emirates Holidays World of Choice brochure launch, at which over 400 agents and 5,500 consumers were exposed to Melbourne and Victoria products suitable for the Arab family and Gulf expatriate segments.
Visions of Victoria image library
Tourism Victoria is keen to ensure the content of the image library is relevant and up to date. Please ensure that you are checking the content of images that relate to your tourism product regularly on the Visions of Victoria website.
Please log on to Tourism Victoria's Media Results website for a comprehensive view of international media articles about Victoria, including general highlights and media results directly from Tourism Victoria's familiarisations.
