4 min readThis September, Visit West Travel Trade's Jon Chamberlain will travel to Australia and New Zealand to represent Bath, Bristol and Beyond at the VisitBritain Australia Mission and New Zealand Workshop, showcasing the region's outstanding tourism experiences to key travel trade buyers.
The mission provides a valuable opportunity to build new connections and strengthen existing relationships across two important international markets. Australia is Britain's fourth most valuable inbound visitor market, while New Zealand is the UK's fastest-growing core market, making both key audiences for promoting the West of England.
Ahead of this year's mission, we're looking back at VisitBritain's 2024 Australia Travel Trade Mission, which Jon also attended, to reflect on the opportunities it created, the relationships built and the insights gained that continue to benefit the region today.
The mission in 2024 was Visit Britain’s first travel trade mission to Australia since 2016 and was well attended by 36 suppliers from across Britain, including five Local Visitor Economy Partnerships, one of which was Visit West. Others included Visit Birmingham/West Midlands, Visit Liverpool, Cumbria Tourism and Experience Oxfordshire.
The Australia inbound market was forecast to be worth a record £1.7bn to the UK economy in 2024. In 2023 there were 1.2m visits (up 10% on 2019) with spend up 36% on 2019 and a whopping 43% up on 2022. Australia is the fourth most valuable market to the UK visitor economy.
The mission took place across the three cities of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane from 8-13 September 2024. In each location, there were one-to-one meetings with product managers as well as structured meetings with travel advisors taking place in the evenings. This made for a highly productive, if somewhat demanding, schedule across the week.
Visit West was able to connect with top travel advisors from Australia’s retail sector during networking and dedicated agent training sessions, converting the demand into bookings.
In Sydney, there was also a gala event for buyers and the UK suppliers at Sydney Opera House, including a special guest appearance from Paddington Bear! This fed into Visit Britain’s preview of their current campaign, “Starring GREAT Britain” which focuses on film and television tourism – now known as ‘set jetting’ – something which the West of England region excels at, of course.
Reporting back before flying home to the UK, Jon Chamberlain said: “This has been a packed week of highly effective meetings with engaged and excited product managers and agents. Australians are more likely to explore more of the country – and spend double the average international visitor while they are here – so it makes complete sense to maximise the knowledge of what’s on offer in our region and give reasons to plan those trips now.”
Themes discussed included heritage links with Australia, not least Brunel’s SS Great Britain, Austen250, Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025 and the location of Bath and Bristol in the country, showcasing not just the cities themselves but everything else around. Combining a stay with a trip into the Cotswolds, for example, to encourage multiple-night stays in our region.
Jon added, “There’s plenty of follow-up to do now, but I have every confidence that we’ll see more visitors from Australia in the years ahead as a result of this travel trade mission.”
Read Visit Britain’s press release about the travel trade mission
Jon is looking forward to reconnecting with existing partners and forging new relationships across the Australian and New Zealand travel trade during the mission. His itinerary includes Auckland, New Zealand (9–11 September), Sydney, Australia (13–16 September) and Melbourne, Australia (16–18 September). It promises to be a busy few days—but there will be plenty of time to catch up on sleep on the flight home!
If you're based in Australia or New Zealand and would like to arrange a meeting with Jon during the mission, please get in touch by emailing traveltrade@visitwest.co.uk.
