Australia in Hot Pursuit of USA Corporate Travel Business
LOS ANGELES, CA, April 8, 2008. Tourism Australia has partnered with America's largest incentive house, Maritz, as part of a major campaign aimed at delivering lucrative new corporate meeting and incentive business into Australia.
The strategic partnership is a first for both Maritz and Tourism Australia and is part of a wider campaign by Tourism Australia to raise awareness of Australia's flourishing incentive and corporate travel market and to turn new leads into new business.
According to Michelle Gysberts, Tourism Australia's Vice President, Americas, this initiative is part of a strengthened focus on business events by Tourism Australia.
In spite of current concerns about tightening budgets and cut backs, Gysberts believes now is the right time for Australia to be more aggressive in this marketplace,
"Now more than ever businesses need to be thinking much more strategically about employee and customer loyalty and about how to improve their performance levels and ultimately, their bottom lines," said Gysberts.
"Three out of four employees would choose Australia over any other country as their incentive choice*, so now is absolutely the right time for us to be increasing our visibility in the US - the Maritz partnership provides us with an excellent platform to do that."
"Australia has developed an amazingly diverse and inspiring range of corporate and incentive programs; from high-end culture and sophistication, to rustic, nature-based experiences," said Gysberts.
Maritz operates more than 2,900 programs per year with more than 350,000 participants. Joint activities in the one-year deal will include a direct mail campaign, joint sales calls and increased visibility throughout Maritz's top incentive accounts.
Judi McLaughlin, senior director, industry relations, Maritz Travel, confirms that Australia has become a top incentive destination choice for organizations that leverage incentive travel programs to improve their business performance.
"Simply put, for many organizations this is a win, win - incentive participants work harder to earn the trip and the company benefits in the improved performance levels," said McLaughlin.
Other Tourism Australia initiatives for 2008 include an Australian Incentive Roadshow, visiting Minneapolis, Dallas and San Francisco, which will take place in June; and famils for incentive agents and corporate buyers to Australia later in the year.
"In 2007, we ran two extremely successful famils from the US in Australia, resulting in big pieces of business. Our investment is proof of our commitment and confidence in getting results from the corporate sector in the US," said Gysberts.
Tourism Australia will also be exhibiting at key US incentive and corporate trade shows including MPI, IT&ME and the Incentive Travel Exchange.
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