Restaurant Australia not just about high end: TA

Restaurant Australia not just about high end: TA
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The appeal of its new Restaurant Australia push extends beyond just premium travellers, Tourism Australia has insisted as it revealed 700 businesses have shared their food and drink experiences through the new platform since its launch last week.

Speaking to Travel Today at the Australian Tourism Exchange in Cairns, managing director John O’Sullivan said the latest phase of There’s nothing like Australia, which has previously been criticised by some for being “too high end”, covers a broad spectrum of experiences which suit travellers of all budgets.

“The beauty of it is that it’s actually across the entire gambit of offerings, so it can be Rockpool or Tetsuyas but it can also also be Caffeine Coffee in Grafton St in cairns, or one of my favourite locations – the Sunshine Beach Surf Lifesaving Club,” he said.

“That’s the beauty of being effectively generated by industry but also by consumers. The whole premise of people, place and produce is about exactly that – that it is actually the entire spectrum.”

One of the first experiences to be profiled on the Restaurant Australia was the Sydney Fish Markets – iconic, but also accessible to all.

Meanwhile, the industry’s enthusiasm for the new campaign following TA’s “rally cry” has been seen as encouraging, with its involvement seen as fundamental to its success.

“If the industry owns it, then they’re really going to get behind it and back it,” O’Sullivan said. “Often we think about tourism operators as just being people that run cruise boats, airlines or hotels but actually it’s much bigger than that – and it’s all these parts of the industry that are getting involved in Restaurant Australia.

“With things particularly like food and wine where we have got access to such an established and passionate industry, it gives us a real boost to our resources and our platform."

The campaign will run until November, culminating in the “Invite the World” gala dinner to be held at Tasmania’s Museum of Old and New Art as part of international familiarisation program.

“Then, like with any campaign, we’ll sit back and take a look at the learnings, any things we could have done differently and then go from there,” O’Sullivan said.

He reiterated Tourism Australia’s commitment to the There’s nothing like Australia campaign, saying its success to date and strong correlation with consumer demand for natural beauty, friendly people and sophisticated cities mean it should continue.

Its decision to ditch the creative agency that delivered the campaign last year in favour of Clemenger has not affected the messaging itself.

“It wasn’t about any changes in terms of our strategic marketing direction of brand direction, it was just about execution of the creative,” he said. “The work that I’ve seen from Clemenger in the last six weeks has been nothing short of exceptional.”

The agency also holds the Virgin Australia account, allowing for future synergies between the creative of the two marketing partners, as signalled by Virgin chief customer officer Mark Hassell upon the announcement the airline would increase its investment in the partnership.

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