By Rachel Clun
Why not Ruby the Koala or Ruby the Wombat to sell Australia to international tourists? Because a kangaroo is the most Australian thing you could use, a former Tourism Australia boss says.
Ruby the Kangaroo was launched in Japan on Tuesday, part of Tourism Australia’s new “Come and Say G’Day” campaign to entice international visitors back after two years of pandemic travel disruptions.
Trade Minister Don Farrell launched the new Tourism Australia campaign in Japan on Wednesday.Credit: Christopher Jue
John O’Sullivan, former managing director of Tourism Australia, said the organisation would have done plenty of research that pointed to a kangaroo being the most iconic emblem of our country.
“The koala is obviously native as well, but the kangaroo is universally known,” he said.
“Tourism Australia researches their campaigns really thoroughly, and their research would show the kangaroo is instantly recognisable.”
O’Sullivan, who is the chief executive of tourism business Experience Co, said it was vital for the campaign to work.
“It’s obviously been a tough time for the industry,” he said. “That cut-through is really important, because we’re competing with other countries for international travellers.”
Trade Minister Don Farrell launched the new campaign in Japan, before travelling to Seoul to strengthen ties with two of Australia’s largest trading partners.
In Seoul on Wednesday and Thursday, Farrell will attend a “Study Australia” roundtable, check out noodles being made with Australian wheat and co-chair the annual trade minister meeting.
Farrell said the government wanted to begin the new advertising campaign in Japan because it knew there was plenty of “pent-up demand” for Japanese people wanting to visit Australia now the borders are open.
“We want to be there to make sure that we take advantage of that,” he told Nine News.
The campaign also aims to boost tourist numbers from countries that have historically been strong tourist markets for Australia.
“We want to get those international tourists coming back to Australia. We want them to come and say g’day,” Farrell said.
Over the last financial year, there were just under 1.2 million visitors to Australia, according to data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, nearly eight times the number of visitors for the previous financial year.
But tourist numbers remain well below pre-pandemic levels. There were 348,440 short-term trips recorded in August, the biggest month so far for incoming tourists since the borders reopened, according to the ABS data. But it was nearly 56 per cent lower than August 2019 levels.
More than one in 10 visitors to Australia in the last financial year (16 per cent) were from New Zealand.
Other top countries visitors to Australia were from included India, the UK, Singapore, the US, Canada, Indonesia, Germany and Malaysia. India replaced China in the top five.
The ABS said the most popular reason for visiting Australia in 2021-2022 was to see friends or relatives and the median length of stay was 26 days.
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