In a competitive environment with rebounding outbound travel, Tourism Australia faced the challenge of attracting Chinese tourists due to limited flight capacity and visa restrictions. The number of Chinese tourists visiting Australia in April of 2023 had only recovered to about 33 percent of pre-pandemic levels. Additionally, Australia's share of voice (SOV) among tourism boards was just 9 percent, indicating fierce competition from other destinations. Post-pandemic, consumer travel preferences shifted towards deeper cultural experiences, creating a need to position Australia as a top choice for Chinese travelers seeking such experiences.
To tackle these challenges, Tourism Australia introduced Ruby the kangaroo as a brand ambassador and showcased the G'day animated short film to highlight Australia's cultural offerings. By leveraging Ruby as a cultural symbol, the campaign aimed to resonate with Chinese travelers' desire for authentic experiences. The strategic use of online and offline media resources maximized reach and engagement, generating buzz and visibility.
With the revival of outbound travel in China, the aim of this campaign was to grow consideration among the target audience to increase the market share and quickly rebuild the China market position in Australia inbound tourism.
For its business goal, Tourism Australia wanted to create demand to enable a purposeful and sustainable tourism industry. A key performance indicator would be how well the campaign reached more high yield Chinese travelers to choose Australia as their most preferred destination for future outbound travel and to convert them further to visit Australia.
With the revival of outbound travel in China, Tourism Australia focused on "culture" by selecting Chengdu to engage Chinese travelers. The campaign introduced kangaroo ambassador Ruby through the original film G'day to foster a cultural connection and offer an immersive experience. Utilizing a varied media mix, the strategy catered to all decision-making stages to motivate Chinese High-Yield Travelers (HYTs) to select Australia for long-haul trips. This data-informed approach, aligned with market trends and consumer behaviors, leveraged the rise in outdoor advertising and online platform usage among HYTs to boost campaign impact.
In response to the challenges posed by the pandemic, Tourism Australia has shifted its strategic focus to China's High Yield Tourists (HYTs), who travelers with high disposable and a preference for cultural tourism. These HYTs exhibit characteristics such as curiosity, excitement for new experiences, active information-seeking behavior, and receptiveness to outdoor media. Major cities such as Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Shanghai were identified as key destinations for these HYTs, with the 20-to-39 age group comprising a large proportion of the audiences.
Outdoor media was set to grow significantly in 2023, with some projections showing a 39.7 percent increase. This trend reflected the renaissance of offline environments and the demand for immersive experiences among China's HYTs. The convergence of online and offline experiences was reshaping media consumption habits, as HYTs increasingly relied on online platforms such as over-the-top TV (OTT) to access travel content. This emphasized collaboration between digital and physical channels to deliver experience-enhancing content.
Tourism Australia's campaign centered around the core theme of "Go, Reignite That Heartbeat," which was meticulously crafted to resonate with Chinese HYTs through a series of strategic communication stages.
In the first stage, Tourism Australia set up a brand pop-up store in Chengdu's Taikoo Li. Simultaneously, the brand occupied the most eye-catching outdoor resources on Chunxi Road and prominent outdoor LEDs in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou to convey a warm welcome through Ruby. The brand also invited major mainstream social media and news media to publish information about the brand. Key opinion leaders were invited for offline limited-time interactions to ignite brand popularity and influence.
In the second stage, Tourism Australia dominated the core high-quality exposure resources of top online and offline media, leveraging topical resources to stimulate user-generated discussions and increase topic visibility. The brand comprehensively covered media scenes that the target audience encounters in their daily lives, including Lift LCD, home OTT, and cinema media in key commercial areas.
In the third stage, Tourism Australia continued to reach potential tourists with precise audience targeting and used engaging interactive resources to further communicate with consumers, establish good relationships, and maintain activity enthusiasm.
The number of Chinese travelers considering Australia as a preferred destination surged by 12 percent, 15 percent, and uplift by 9 percent, compared to pre-campaign and post-campaign, showcasing a substantial conversion rate.
In a recent survey conducted by Ctrip, Australia emerged as one of the top 10 preferred outbound travel destinations, solidifying its position as a sought-after choice for long-distance travel among Chinese tourists. This recognition highlighted the success of Tourism Australia's branding efforts in maintaining visibility and desirability among travelers.
In February 2024, the number of Chinese tourists entering Australia reached 149,000, making China the largest source of Australia visitors.
