Qantas signs marketing deals with four states

Qantas has signed marketing deals worth almost $40m with the NSW and Queensland governments.

Qantas has struck marketing deals with four states.

Qantas (QAN) has signed marketing and promotion deals worth almost $40 million with the NSW and Queensland governments to promote the states around the world.

The national carrier is also set to announce fresh marketing deals with Victoria and Western Australia in coming weeks.

Qantas suspended its multi-million-dollar and 40-year-old partnership with the federal government-backed Tourism Australia in 2012.

The deal collapsed through ill feeling between Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce and the ­airline’s former boss Geoff Dixon, who was the chairman of ­Tourism Australia at the time.

Qantas has since struck three-year marketing agreements with individual state governments.

Queensland Minister for Tourism and Major Events Kate Jones said the $9.8m three-year deal announced yesterday was a joint investment between Qantas and Tourism and Events Queensland aimed at attracting more visitors to Queensland from across Australia and Asia, the US, New Zealand and Britain.

“The agreement will promote Queensland as Australia’s premier tourist and major event destination, growing inbound and domestic traffic to major cities and regional areas,” Ms Jones said in a statement.

“This in turn will maximise the economic impact of visitors to Queensland and create local jobs.”

The three-year deal focuses on destination and event marketing, including joint campaigns focusing on digital and social media, trade partner campaigns, public relations activities and trade and media visits.

Qantas International CEO Gareth Evans said: “As the largest private investor in Australian tourism, it’s a really exciting time for us to be investing to attract more visitors to Queensland, particularly with the relatively low Australian dollar and the number of visitors from markets like Hong Kong, China and the US at an all-time high.”

Qantas also recently signed a $28m deal with the NSW government to promote Sydney to the rest of the world, particularly ­focusing on high-yielding British, American, Chinese and Asian tourists. NSW welcomed 3.6 million overseas visitors spending $9 billion in the 12 months to March this year.

Mr Evans said the national carrier had brought more than one million international visitors to Sydney last year — nearly double any other airline — and was pleased to keep investing in tourism with the NSW government for another three years.

He said there had been a double-digit percentage increase in the number of travellers from Asia to both Queensland and NSW in the past three years, with Japan the biggest market in Queensland, and China, Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong the biggest markets for NSW.