As Australia quickly becomes a favorite destination for Chinese tourists, its government is preparing to launch a 10-year multiple-entry tourism visa for Chinese nationals in an effort to attract an even more visitors.
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Tourism Australia’s regional GM of greater China Andrew Hogg said its research showed that while the number of independent Chinese travelers is growing fast, the majority of Chinese still visit Australia via booked tours. They hope to leverage the “Tour Operator Upgrade Plan” to assist tour operators in providing more enriching, warm and quality Australian tourism products to Chinese visitors.
Over 950,000 Chinese tourists visited Australia in the 12 months up to August 31, up 21.2% y-o-y. Tourism Australia predicts that Australia will receive an annual total of over one million Chinese visitors by the end of the year or the beginning of next year.
Most Chinese visitors head to Australia for leisure and sightseeing or MICE purposes, and MICE visitors’ per capita spending is especially high. However, Australia is facing dilution of its Chinese visitor traffic as other long-haul destinations such as the UK, the US and Canada have introduced multiple-entry visas of longer duration, from two years to 10 years, for Chinese visitors.
Mr. Hogg believes that the development of Chinese tourism to Australia will pick up in the future and we are actively developing strategic tourism industry alliances in the Chinese market. They recently signed strategic partnerships with a variety of Chinese companies like Alitrip and China Eastern Airlines to achieve well-rounded market deployment and tap into the market potential in China.（Translation by David)
