Tourism’s Australia’s foremost event was branded this year as ‘ATE18’.

The event, organised by Tourism Australia in partnership with host-state partner, the South Australian Tourism Commission (SATC), and airline partner Virgin Australia, had attracted over 2,200 travel industry delegates to Adelaide.

The event includes several Australia-focused outbound tour operators and media from India. Overall this year, there are around 650 buyer delegates representing travel wholesalers and retailers from 30 countries, spanning the Americas, Continental Europe, the United Kingdom and Asia-Pacific, to meet and do business with 1,600 tourism delegates from 540 Australian businesses.

Tourism Australia Managing Director John Sullivan said it is a great time to host ATE in Adelaide as Australia's visitor economy continues to climb to record levels of
spend and visitation.

“Australia welcomed a record 8.8 million international visitors last year, which was around half a million more than the previous year. Significantly, international visitor expenditure rose six per cent to a record $41.3 billion highlighting that our plans to grow Australia's visitor economy are well on track,” Sullivan said.

“Importantly, ATE provides a platform for supporting our international consumer travel campaigns by connecting key international travel wholesalers and retailers with Australian industry during the 50,000 business appointments held during the event.

“Ultimately, it is about ensuring Australian holidays are top of mind with the agents who sell our destination to consumers - ensuring we can continue to inspire travellers with our world-class tourism offering and convert the desire for Australia to holiday visits,” he added.

Sullivan said the connections made at ATE help deliver around three million visitors each year, spending up to $8.5 billion whilst they are here, thereby helping to further grow our visitor economy.     

“The economic impact of ATE is significant and will directly help to boost Australia's inbound tourism sector, and we are delighted to be hosting the event in Adelaide this
year with host state partner the South Australian Tourism Commission,” Sullivan said.

Whilst the economic benefits of hosting ATE in Adelaide include an immediate $10 million injection in to the local economy, longer term.

South Australian Tourism Commission, Chief Executive, Rodney Harrex said South Australia is an incredible Australian destination to visit and ATE is great opportunity to remind influencers in the travel and tourism space about the best our state has to offer. 

“By hosting ATE we aim to attract more visitors to the state, which will ultimately boost jobs and strengthen our visitor economy,” Harrex said.

India received big attention from state and regional tourism agencies and various tourism product suppliers as India is deemed as the market with enormous growth
potential.

Recently Indian visitors have recorded an increase in spending by 16%.

Organised by TravMedia in partnership with Tourism Australia, this appointment style workshop acted as a platform for sharing product knowledge and media ideas.

(Reporting by Sandip Hor)