Exclusive Interview with Bill Spurr, CEO South Australian Tourism Commission at ATE 2006

JAJ: Bill thank you for taking the time to meet with me and also thank you ro you and your colleagues for hosting such a wonderful event.

BS: It is really great that so many of the industry managed to a make it to Adelaide for ATE 2006 and we are delighted to be their hosts.

As you may know, we were due to host ATE last year, but our new airport terminal was not finished so we decided to ask for a years grace and ATE 2005 was held in Perth.

The terminal is now open as you know, running smoothly and a great credit to Adelaide.

There is also excellent spin off for the local tourism industry as June is normally a quite time of the year but as a result of ATE, Adelaide hotels are full and it is a great opportunity to expose our destination to this international audience

JAJ: Tell me about the new South Australia brand and campaigns.

BS: It took a long time to think about our brand and in the past it has been confused and a mixture.  What we have done is consolidate everything that is South Australia into what we call a “brilliant blend” and you will have seen our brand video and looked at our web site http://www.southaustralia.com/home.asp to see the core elements of that brand.

There is no doubt that our key strength is wine with 50% of wine production in Aus coming from South Australia and we are dominant in wine exports.

We hope that our brand and associated creative and advertising are modern, creative and inspiring.  We spent $1m on it domestically and are then rolling it out to each of our international markets over the next 12 months.

JAJ: What have been the challenges to you in international business in the past?

BS: There is no doubt that limited international air access to Adelaide has been a major stumbling block to developing international business, but we now have 26 international flights a week into South Australia, with 90,000 additional seats into Adelaide in 2005.

We also now have strong connections through from Europe and UK, via Asia to our strongest source markets, providing over 50% of our inbound visitors and direct services from NZ to Adelaide which have made a great difference and created a great opportunity.

We are looking at increasing international services but we want to be careful to ensure that the current capacity is fully utilised, before encouraging more carriers as we do not want a carrier pulling off the route because of load and yield problems.

Having said that, we are hopeful to see Emirates in Adelaide in the next 18 months.   We have had lots of discussion and they have been assessing if Adelaide is right for them.

The good news is also that the Dec 2005 quarter was up 13% in international visitors and the March 2006 quarter up 5%, so clearly international air access has helped us.

We also have an MOU on joint cooperative activity across the world with Singapore Airlines to ensure that their flights into Adelaide are successful and we are spending $900k campaigning with Singapore Airlines, with Singapore, Hong Kong, France and Italy in the 1st stage and then UK and other countries in the 2nd stage. 

We also have $100,000 of the Singapore campaign allocated to UK which has traditionally been our key market into SA, mainly because of close traditional links and we think that will remain so.

Over the last 2 years we have undertaken the biggest ever brand campaign in NZ with a $1.5m budget, driving strong VFR traffic and that campaign will continue through 06/7.

It is also important that we work with wholesalers in NZ and we have put more money into consumer brand marketing in NZ that any other market.

In North America we work with wholesalers and trade and also in particular with Qantas and Air New Zealand to promote the link to Auckland and then Los Angeles.

JAJ: You clearly work very closely with Tourism Australia, but do you work with other States?

BS: We work with other states where we find that works best for us depending on synergies with that state and we have worked well together with Northern Territory, Victoria and Western Australia.

JAJ: You mentioned that 340,000 international visitors come to SA every year and you are doing a wonderful job considering your apparent resources.  Are you constrained by budget?

BS: We always want more budget but I believe that we do an effective job.

An event like ATE is critical to us with the SA Government investing $2m in the event and what has been great is that the Premier has been able to see the power of tourism and that will help us in Government. 

The Minister for Tourism is a fabulous supporter and a champion for our cause, but the additional key is being able to inform the Premier and Treasurer, so having the Premier here at ATE 2006 for so long has been great. 

We are hoping to get the Treasurer here in the next couple of days, so that he can experience the impact of ATE 2006 and the travel and tourism industry first hand.

JAJ: What about the domestic picture as doemstic numbers are pretty flat?

BS: The domestic tourism picture is not so strong and we are very much a domestic destination with 20% international and 80% domestic, so we have to be very innovative and we are working hard in our core markets to ensure that we grow our domestic business – it is working with more Australians discovering Adelaide and this massives State, that offers such diversity. 

JAJ: You have not mentioned the USA, so what are you doing there.

BS: We focus in the US with the six or seven big Aussie wholesale distributors and work closely with them in the more traditional tourism distribution methods with the product focus being on Kangaroo Island which we use as a hook, because all indications are that it is becoming as well known as Uluru and other great Australian icons  

JAJ: Thank you Bill for taking the time to speak with me and thank you to you and your team for such a great welcome to Adelaide.

Report by John Alwyn-Jones from ATE 2006