Australia Aims to Attract Foodies with Restaurant Australia Tourism Campaign

Tourism Australia will focus on the country's food and wine for its new international marketing campaign with the theme Restaurant Australia. The target of the new campaign are the foodies and wine connoisseurs.

It is actually the next phase of the agency's There's nothing like Australia campaign that it developed in partnership with Wine Australia.

Besides bringing in the foodies, the campaign targets to close the gap between the priorities of holidaymakers and the poor perception of culinary industries in Australia even if the nation is known for its meat cuts and fresh produce.

Tourism Australia launched the campaign on Tuesday morning at the first Savour Australia forum in Adelaide. More than 800 wine industry and media representatives from different countries attended the event.

Andrew McEvey, managing director of Tourism Australia, disclosed that food, wine and local cuisine were the top consideration of 38 per cent of travelers, while beauty and natural environment were the second most important factors cited by 37 per cent. Another 26 per cent believe Australia has good food and wine to offer, but these tourists have never set foot in the country.

The findings were based on surveys made by Tourism Australia of 13,000 people from China, India, Japan, Germany, UK, U.S. and other key markets.

"Clearly, we need to narrow the perception gap between those who have visited Australia and those who have not. This is a great marketing and communications challenge," Mumbrella quoted Mr McEvey.

The agency will present the idea that Australia is the world's greatest restaurant by offering the most unique food and wine experiences in remarkable locations daily.

"This is an exciting new era in the promotion of our food and wine and will ensure our offering becomes more relevant to the decision making process for travel to and within Australia ... The new food and wine focus will help the industry extend its consumer reach on a scale we've not been able to achieve before," said James Gosper, general manager for market development of Wine Australia.