Tourism Western Australia (WA) is stepping up its destination marketing in Hong Kong, launching set foot on the dream Last week’s branding campaign focused its attention on four key destinations, namely the Kimberley, Margaret River region, Ningaloo Reef and Perth.
The launch event brought together 19 Hong Kong travel agencies for an afternoon of artistic carpet tufting.
Hong Kong agency partners can also look forward to a seven-day trade trip in mid-March 2023, re-discovering Perth, Mandurah, the Swan Valley and Australia’s Coral Coast, said Tourism WA marketing representative Vivian Chow. Backed by Cathay Pacific, the trip will consist of five or six top players.
She added that Hong Kong’s trade engagement has been ongoing through Australia’s expert agent training program and partnerships with key airline partners Cathay Pacific and Singapore Airlines, as well as consortium agents.
For example, a partnership with Singapore Airlines has spawned collaborations with new outbound travel specialist Ulu Travel and Hong Kong Cantopop personality Serrini Leung. Serrini’s digital broadcasts from 27 February to 7 March are used to upsell the Follow Serrini’s Footprint Western Australia package.
Zhou told TTG Asia Hong Kong’s tourism market “rebounded fairly quickly in the last few months after the border reopened”.
Short-haul travel has performed particularly well to begin with, and Chow expects Hong Kong’s leisure travelers — especially DINKs, families and individual travelers — to start shifting to long-haul travel in February 2023, as their “travel revenge” is complete.
Hong Kong remains an important market source for Tourism Western Australia. It was WA’s seventh-biggest market for visitor spending in 2019, with 32,000 visitors from Hong Kong spending A$92 million (US$61.9 million) in the state before the pandemic.
At present, the success of rebuilding the Hong Kong market depends on the resumption of air freight. Cathay Pacific is the only airline with direct flights to Perth, with three flights a week. Singapore Airlines flies to Perth via Singapore.
Chow said Tourism WA’s aviation team was working closely with the two airlines to build a strong link to Perth by leveraging the Aviation Recovery Fund, which provides “key incentives” to increase flight frequency and support marketing strategies.
