Glass half full approach to Australian wine marketing

Posted by AFN Staff Writers on 13th December 2012

International marketing of two of Australia’s biggest export sectors – wine and tourism – is about to be bolstered by a new three-year Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Tourism Australia and Wine Australia, announced this week.

Collectively, wine and tourism contribute around $140 billion annually in economic value to Australia. Wine is the fourth biggest agricultural export sector in Australia, while tourism is Australia’s largest services export sector. The new agreement will promote Australian wine and tourism together to markets in China, the USA, the UK and Canada.

According to Nielsen data released last month, Australian wine producers are expected to take-over up to 70 per cent of the wine market within the next three years. Nielsen Off-Premise Retail Analysis reports that Australian family wine producers have increased their sales in the bottled wine market by $200 million over the past five years, with the new partnership set to further increase sales.

Wine Australia’s Chairman George Wahby said the obvious synergies between the wine and tourism sectors means a close alliance is vitally important.

“Our partnership with Tourism Australia is a very exciting prospect for the wine industry as we move the promotion of wine firmly into the lifestyle sector through a combination of wine, food and tourism,” Mr Wahby said.

Tourism Australia’s Managing Director Andrew McEvoy said the partnership comes off the back of new research which shows that Australia’s high quality wine and food offerings are key selling points for international visitors.

“Recent findings from our Consumer Demand Research in 11 key tourism markets indicate that Australia’s food and wine are an important part of the visitor experience but are not necessarily something that visitors know a lot about before they arrive here,” Mr McEvoy said.

Mr McEvoy said that regional areas could expect to “especially benefit” from the tourism opportunities offered by Australia’s wine experiences, especially when matched with “fine food.”

The recent partnership of Wine Australia and Tourism Australia comes at a time when Australia has attracted a record six million international visitors in the past year, domestic travel has seen five consecutive months of growth, and Australian wine exports have increased at higher price points, with a four per cent per litre increase in the average value.