Australia could do more to attract wealthy travellers

AUSTRALIA needs to do more to make itself an attractive destination for luxury travellers, one of the country’s most experienced travel industry figures says.

HIGH END: The view from the Osprey Pavilion at the up-market Southern Ocean Lodge on Kang

AUSTRALIA needs to do more to make itself an attractive destination for luxury travellers, one of the country’s most experienced travel industry figures says.

With a range of top food and wine experiences, iconic natural attractions and a vibrant city culture, Phil Hoffman Travel managing director Phil Hoffmann says Australia has huge potential for luxury tourism.

However, he says tourism bodies and government need to do more to woo big spenders from overseas.

“I think we could do better,” he says. “The hardest thing is getting into the market and I believe we still lack much of the necessary infrastructure.”

Hoffmann, a past Australian Federation of Travel Agents national president who runs an Adelaide-based grouping of travel agents, points to South Australia’s Kangaroo Island as an example.

TripAdvisor recently rated it as one of the top 10 islands in the South Pacific and it is home to the exclusive Southern Ocean Lodge, but Hoffmann says it lacks many of the facilities required by high-end visitors.

“There are no facilities for Lear Jets on KI,” he says. “Things like that can stop high-end tourists from visiting.

“The government needs to do more work to help.”

Luxury tourism refers to experiences catering to the ultra-rich, such as luxury cruising and high-roller casinos. However, it also refers to bespoke experiences such as up-market African safaris and personalised tours to Europe or to more exotic locations such as Bhutan.

Hoffmann says Australia is well positioned to cash in on wealthy tourists from the emerging middle class in Asian countries such as China and India. It could also make more of luxury tourists from the US, with the number of Americans visiting our shores last year reaching 508,700 – the highest on record.

Matthew Upchurch, the chief executive of global luxury travel network Virtuoso, says luxury travel has been one area of the tourism industry largely unaffected by the Global Financial Crisis.

“Areas like luxury cruising have just exploded in the last six to seven years,” he says.

“One of the areas where Australia in particular has really evolved is in the maturity of cruising.

“Now, it is the fourth most- important cruise market in the world and there is so much product.”

Upchurch, whose network includes more than 330 agencies in 20 countries, ties it not only to the existing rich in the West and their emerging counterparts in Asia, but says it is also linked to the retirement of cashed-up baby boomers.

“For baby boomers, travel is part of their life, it’s considered to be a right,” he says.

While governments and tourism bodies need to focus on providing the right infrastructure and experiences to attract luxury tourists, Upchurch says travel companies also need to understand what they are looking for.

“One of the core tenets of up-market travel is to be a lot more bespoke,” he says.

“It’s to really to get into the intrinsic value of what a customer is looking for.”

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