Tourism Australia and Virgin Australia have announced they will expand their marketing partnership to target additional inbound tourism to Australia.
Under the new arrangement, the two parties will increase their annual partnership for the 2014/15 financial year to $8 million, twice the amount agreed upon 12 months ago. The new agreement takes the total value of the three year partnership to up to $16 million.
“We are delighted to once again deepen our partnership with Tourism Australia as part of our shared commitment to promoting Australia as a world-class destination,” Virgin Australia Chief Customer Officer Mark Hassell said. “Over the past two years, we have worked closely to launch a number of progressive and innovative marketing campaigns in key international markets including our recent digitally led ‘Someday’ competition in the US, which achieved close to half a million entries.”
Tourism Australia managing director, John O’Sullivan, said the extension of its marketing agreement with Virgin Australia meant significant extra dollars would be put towards promoting Australian tourism within some of its traditional overseas markets.
“We are very much looking forward to building on an already successful partnership which, last year, saw the launch of our biggest ever airline partnership in the US with the ‘Someday’ campaign, but also included Virgin Australia providing strong support for ‘Best Jobs in the World’, Dreamtime and, of course, ATE14, as our platinum airline sponsor,” O’Sullivan said. “This increase in funding for the partnership recognises the opportunity for further growth from some of our highest volume and most valuable markets. It’s a great deal for Australian tourism and great timing, on the eve of Australia’s biggest annual trade event here in Cairns.”
