Tourism Australia and Alibaba train distribution partners in China

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04 Sep 2015, 10:31 am

Sydney, Aug 29 (NITN): More than 30 representatives from Tourism Australia’s select network of preferred travel distribution partners in China received specialist training on how to design attractive packages for Alibaba’s popular travel site, Alitrip.com, last week.

Under a three-year partnership signed in June by Tourism Australia and e-commerce giant Alibaba, Australia will be the first overseas long-haul destination to have its own dedicated sales webpage on Alitrip.com.

The co-branded portal, due to launch in September, will use ‘There’s Nothing Like Australia’ campaign assets and features Australian travel packages offered by Tourism Australia’s dedicated network of ‘key distribution partners’ in China.

The two day training, held at Alibaba’s head office in Hangzhou, also covered a range of other topics including Australian visas, digital marketing and Tourism Australia’s upcoming promotions.

Tourism Australia Managing Director John O’Sullivan said the agreement with Alibaba would help Tourism Australia and its state and territory tourism partners to target China’s rapidly growing and lucrative free and independent travel (FIT) market with highly personalised travel packages.

“The partnership with Alibaba is a landmark deal since it gives us a huge distribution and conversion platform within our most valuable international market. It also gives us access to consumer data which will help us better target our destination message and sell quality Australian holiday packages within a market which is already worth $5.7 billion a year to us,” he said.

Under the Key Distribution Partner (KDP) program Tourism Australia and its state and territory tourism partners work closely with a targeted group of travel agencies to promote Australian holidays. A distribution partner can be a wholesaler, retail travel agent or an online travel agent.

KDP selection is based on a number of criteria including the ability to demonstrate commitment and capability to marketing quality Australian tourism experiences, staff training and product development. Each KDP must already have a solid understanding of the Australian tourism market as well as established relationships with the high yield consumers Tourism Australia is actively targeting.

As part of the KDP program the agencies commit to running marketing campaigns promoting Australia. Each of these campaigns are aimed at increasing length of stay and dispersal and are linked to existing Tourism Australia campaigns such as ‘Restaurant Australia’.

China is Australia’s highest value market with total expenditure growing 25 per cent for the year ending March 2015 to reach $6.4 billion.

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