Tourism Australia (TA) aims to achieve the goal of 400,000 in Japanese visitor arrivals for 2010. Kazunori Hori, general manager for Japan at TA, gave an overview of 2009 and said the new type of influenza dealt a serious blow to the Australian tourism causing cancellation of more than 30,000 people in educational tour alone, but the economic impact was limited only to a loss of 2 percent. Despite a decline of total Japanese visitors for the year, he continued, aggregate number of nights of their stay grew 9 percent, paring the economic loss to the minimum. Then he concluded, “It was lucky that the year 2009 wasn’t much worse.” As for 2010, Hori says, “There are no major drawbacks in sight.” He is rather hopeful of the turn of the tide, citing good passenger loads on airlines from January to March, Jetstar’s reinstatement of Kansai/Cairns route from April onward, and employment of bigger aircrafts by Qantas on Narita/Sydney route.


TA Japan’s strategy for 2010 is an implementation of the strategy carried over from the second half of 2009. It will focus on education tours that account for 70 percent of all group tours. Not only will it rely on travel agencies’ group sale but will make direct approaches to schools and teachers for solicitation. To comply with the school’s request, TA published a handbook for destination study in preparation for the trip. It also started to circulate a web magazine specialized for educational tours.

With regard to leisure travel, TA puts its energy into package tour and FIT. In the mature market of Japan where 90 percent of outbound travelers is repeat travelers, they are not content with stereotype package tours. Therefore, it is trying to impress on them that Australia is the destination that suits FIT travelers, by providing information for special interest tours (SIT) in papers and on the web. In the “Aussie” campaign whose purpose is to transmit information about SIT, the number of visitors to the website is on the increase. TA continues the story-telling communication being undertaken by Jon Kabira. Under such circumstances, the share of FIT is reported to be steadily growing. The current composition of package tour, FIT, and group in the incoming Japanese tourists is 40:40:20.

TA is eager to enhance consulting competence of travel agency counter staff. In line with the objective, it encourages agency staff to get a qualification at Aussie Specialist Program in the scheme of JATA’s Destination Specialist; it also plans to host a familiarization tour and seminars. On February 24 and 25, the 19th annual meeting of Japan Australia Mission (JAM) was held in Tokyo. Forty-six members from 42 corporations and associations in Australia, including provincial and municipal tourism offices, came on this mission, and 50 Japanese buyers participated in the event. Meanwhile, TA-backed store display contest, which is now in its third year, sees more travel agencies joining; moreover, TA is happy about the event because the agencies take the opportunity not just of dressing the store but of educating the staff about Australia.


(Note: This article translated from Japanese into English)