Virgin Australia has embarked on a A$4 million joint marketing campaign as part of an MOU with Tourism Australia to capture greater market share of Americans travelling to Australia.
Kicking off today in the USA, the campaign will include integrated digital and TVC combining Tourism Australia’s ‘There’s Nothing Like Australia’ destination imagery alongside a Virgin Australia call to action, ‘There’s No Better Way to Get There’.
The campaign represents a “significant milestone” according to TA of the $20 million, three-year global marketing deal, signed between the two partners in Q3 last year. Virgin Australia is currently Tourism Australia’s largest airline partner.
Ads will air during US-news programme Good Morning America’s coverage of the pre-show and during their Oscars coverage. Customised content will also appear on popular US-website Huffington Post and the Los Angeles Times, and takeovers on Yahoo!, USA Today and the Wall Street Journal.
Supported by a A$4 million media buy, the campaign is expected to drive traffic to the Australia.com website, where a TravelZoo booking widget will allow customers to book holiday packages from five wholesale travel partners.
“Ultimately, the goal is to build upon the growth we have seen from the US market over the past 18 months, by delivering compelling destination messages and great travel offers to affluent, middle-aged leisure travellers in ten of America’s key states,” Tourism Australia managing director, John O’Sullivan said.
The new marketing features imagery from the successful “Restaurant Australia” campaign rolled out late last year, and keeps in line with the food and wine theme Tourism Australia are currently focusing on.
“Restaurant Australia has created a great platform for us, particularly within the US, and allows us now to really put our focus on conversion opportunities,” O’Sullivan said.
Virgin Australia operates 28 weekly flights to and from Los Angeles and up to 42 flights per week as part of the alliance with Delta Air Lines.
“Our latest campaign is an example of Virgin Australia’s significant investment in inbound tourism,” Virgin Australia chief customer officer, Mark Hassell said.
“This is an emotive campaign … we hope to ‘wow’ discerning American viewers with the breadth and depth of experiences Australia has to offer, beginning with the award winning product and service our airline provides.”
Since the airline moved to a daily service between Brisbane and LA late last year, the uptake shows an approximate 74% of inbound holidaymakers from the USA have focused their travel on Queensland and NSW.
Virgin Australia’s Boeing 777 fleet is expected to undergo refurbishments to its business class, to be enhanced to 80-inch fully flat beds under the airline’s Virgin Vision 2017 strategy.
As the fourth largest international tourism market to Australia, arrivals from the USA are up 10.8% to 537,600 in 2014 for the year ending September 2014.
Total annual overnight visitor spending for the US market tops A$2.7 billion , with the potential to hit up to A$5.5 billion by 2020.
