Sydney is World's no. 2 city - Survey

Sydney has been voted the top travel destination in the South Pacific, and the second top spot in the world.

Sydney has been voted the top travel destination in the South Pacific and the second top spot in the world after Cape Town in South Africa.

That's according to users of the TripAdvisor website and Facebook app in its 2011 Travellers' Choice Destination survey.

TripAdvisor's Emma O'Boyle says tourism's vital to the Australian economy so it's good to see Sydney outshining hotspots like Paris, New York and London.

Queenstown in New Zealand was second favourite in the South Pacific, followed by Melbourne, Perth and Byron Bay.

Wednesday, May 04, 2011

Oprah Sending Domestic Tourism Up

Domestic tourism has been positively affected by the visit and subsequent broadcasts of Australia by American small-screen icon Oprah Winfrey the Tourism Australia boss has told e-Travel Blackboard.

“I was blown away, during the time she was here in December and then when the shows went to air, by how much more Australians have focused on their own country,” Tourism Australia (TA) managing director Andrew McEvoy told e-Travel Blackboard at last week’s Australian Tourism Exchange.

“If you talk to some of the operators like Hamilton Island, Andrew Byrnes from AOT, they saw an upturn in enquiries and bookings [domestically] about Australia during the Oprah phenomenon.”

“It was not something that we had designed it to do, but it still happened.”

Asked if he was now “best buds” with Oprah, Mr McEvoy replied although he only met her a few times, he did “get a sense of her”, adding “he was pretty amazed by her”.

“She genuinely is a heartfelt person, who has a really strong message...and the good thing for us is she used Australia as a backdrop,” the TA boss said.

“To have the world’s best known broadcaster be a mouthpiece for Australia was just an incredible opportunity that we took, and she really celebrated our country, which has been great.”

Meanwhile, 61 per cent of the 48 million people in North America who saw Oprah’s shows claim they are actively researching an Australian vacation, whilst 3.3 per cent claim to have already booked holidays, according to Mr McEvoy.

(Source: eTravelBlackboard, 11th April 2011)

Oprah's Australia Visit May Well to Pay Off

It looks as though the Oprah effect is beginning to be felt by Australia's tourism industry.

Tourism Australia (TA) boss Andrew McEvoy says while it's a bit early to start popping the champagne corks, new research and feedback from the industry suggests US talk show queen Oprah Winfrey's foray down under in December is starting to pay dividends.

Mr McEvoy, who is attending the Australian Tourism Exchange (ATE) in Sydney this week, said online travel agency Orbitz, a key partner in TA's Great Aussie Sale promotion which ran in the United States alongside the Oprah show's airing, has reported an increase in bookings.

Advertisement: Story continues below "Orbitz figures for January and February 2011 compared with the same period last year, revealed that revenue from flight and hotel

bookings has risen 9.65 per cent and 13.6 per cent respectively," he said in a daily online newsletter to ATE delegates.

"Separately a consumer research poll of 1200 Americans, 1000 Oprah viewers and 200 non Oprah viewers, revealed 61 per cent of respondents who were aware of Oprah's Australian shows had already explored travel options to Australia.

"And 74 per cent of those who were aware of the shows agreed that Australia is worth travelling to."

Other commercial partners involved in campaign activity around the shows have also reported spikes in holiday bookings.

Mr McEvoy said Flight Centre/Liberty Travel had seen flight bookings so far in 2011 increase by 108 per cent compared with 2010.

US boutique travel group, Signature Travel, has reported a 52 per cent increase in Australian bookings for February 2011 compared with last year, while visits to TA's website, www.australia.com during January and February were nearly double the monthly average.

"The four Oprah shows began re-airing in the US from March 24, kick-starting another big marketing push by Tourism Australia, including phase two of the Great Aussie Sale as well as airline partnerships with V Australia and Delta.

"Since its announcement in September 2010, Oprah's visit to Australia has generated more than 86,000 media articles across the world, with an estimated equivalent advertising value of $368 million," he said.

Tourism Australia believes the US market has the potential to grow to between 760,000 and 840,000 visitors, contributing between $4.5 billion and $5.5 billion in overnight expenditure by 2020

Around 700 international travel delegates from 40 countries are meeting with 1700 tourism operators from across the country at the ATE in Sydney this week.

"ATE is the most important event on the Australian tourism industry calendar, and we estimate it will immediately inject more than $10 million into the local economy, but many millions more longer term," Mr McEvoy said.

Aussies stayed in Australian hotels 3% longer on average this year

Aussies are staying longer in Australian hotels than last year, with hotel bookings 3 percent longer on average than last year, and Australians spending 5 percent more on their daily hotel rates.

Domestic tourism continues to struggle in the face of the high Australian dollar making overseas travel relatively less expensive than the same time last year, however in a survey by hotel group Best Western, the effects of the global financial crisis may well be over in the Australian accommodation sector. Australian hotels and motels in the past six months have seen corporate clients and families returning in the past six months, suggesting that more mobile young holiday goers are taking advantage of the high Australian dollar and opting not to travel domestically.

Kimi Anderson, General Manager of Sales and Marketing for Best Western Australasia said families are key to domestic tourism income in Australia.

“Corporate clients and families are still finding travel achievable and affordable, which is a great sign for the industry. It’s also heartening to see that holidays are being extended for families, and people are feeling more relaxed about taking time away from work to explore the beauty of Australia”.

Online bookings for Best Western spiked by 65 percent in the last month alone, demonstrating the shift towards purchasing travel online

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