Alaska urges Australians to venture to Arctic Circle for 'wintry version of the Outback'

AUSTRALIA is Alaska's largest overseas tourism market, but Down Under visitors are being told to venture further.

The sun sets as Mt McKinley casts its reflection on Reflection Pond in Denali National Park, Alaska. Picture: AP

AUSTRALIA is now Alaska's largest overseas tourism market, and officials from the remote US state are setting their sights on encouraging Aussie visitors to return and explore further afield.

A total of 36,000 Australian tourists visited Alaska in the summer of 2011 - the year Australia overtook the UK to become the state's biggest market - and numbers are increasing every year.

Visit Anchorage vice-president for tourism development and sales, David Kasser, said Australians visiting America's largest and most remote state tended to stay longer than their international counterparts - an average two to three weeks. They also tend to be older and wealthier, making them good spenders.

However, he said Australian tourism was dominated by cruises along the Inside Passage in the state's southeast, with 96 per cent of visitors travelling there.

In contrast, the second most popular region - south central - attracted just 29 per cent of Australian tourists.

"I like to call the seven-day Inside Passage Cruise the Alaska Starter Cruise," said Kasser, who was in Australia this week to promote his state.

"The southeast is gorgeous but it is markedly different to the rest of the state.

"Other parts of Alaska have a different kind of beauty, the kind of beauty that hurts a little, that feels a bit lonely, that makes you think a little about your significance."

Sadly, for many Australian tourists, the southeast is all they get to see. Only 4 per cent of Australian visitors return to Alaska for a second visit - the smallest number of repeat visitors of any of Alaska's major tourism markets.

This is a statistic Alaskan officials want to change, and are keen to emphasise the range of other activities on offer.

While recently defined as the home state of failed vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin and hockey mums, the state of just 700,000 people plays host to 15 national parks, preserves, monuments and national historical parks, including Denali National Park, which contains North America's highest peak.

Bordering Canada, the Arctic and the Pacific oceans, diverse activities such as ice-climbing, paddle-boarding, cycling and hiking mean that Alaska can also cater to the wanderlust or thirst for adventure of tourists any time of the year.

Kathy Hedges, marketing co-ordinator for the Northern Alaska Tour Company, knows her part of the state can be a hard sell.

Remote and with limited transport connections, the region north of the Arctic Circle is also dark for much of the year and only 1 per cent of Australian visitors make it up there.

"While a large number of Australians are coming to Alaska, a small number are coming across the Arctic Circle," Hedges said.

However, Hedges said there wasa growing number of travellers was venturing north in search of unique experiences such as the Arctic Tundra and the Northern Lights, which can be seen between August and April.

She said Australians would encounter a landscape that was a "wintry version of the Outback", with rich indigenous Inuit culture and rugged frontier characters for them to meet.