Opinion
- There’s nothing like inertia in the face of a downturn
  
  Do you remember the big fanfare when Tourism Australia launched its ‘There’s Nothing Like Australia’ campaign, and invited the nation to share its favourite Australian places and experiences with the world? I’m sure you do, we wrote about it extensively at the time, and TA managing director Andrew McEvoy even wrote a column for Thumbrella urging the backpacking sector to get involved. Read more »
- Here’s how to cash in on the gap year boom
  
  In this guest posting, Gapyear.com founder Tom Griffiths tells you how to cash in on disappointed UK students who miss out on a university place this year.
  
  UK media reports that 200,000 young people will miss out on university places this year may be overhyped – in truth about 100,000 don’t normally get in anyway – but it’s still a shocking statistic. And an opportunity for you guys Down Under to cash in. Read more »
- Lonely Planet – the gift that keeps on giving
  
  There’s nothing my kids hate more than hearing me start a telling off with the phrase “when I was a kid…” It usually follows them taking an ordinary household item – like the family computer – for granted. Read more »
- ATEC could do worse than appoint the next Matt Hingerty to replace the last one
  
  As a long-suffering England soccer fan, I’ve noticed a trend in the way the Football Association appoints the national team manager. That is, it tends to go for the polar opposite of the man who went before. If you don’t believe me, here’s the recent evidence… Read more »
- Another Wicked piece of marketing
  
  I’ve written about this before, but once again I have to confess to a sneaking admiration for the PR and marketing expertise of John Webb and Wicked Campers. Read more »
- Grounds for cautious optimism, but things could get worse before they get better
  
  Just got back from a couple of weeks in London – surely the world’s most depressed capital city at the moment, but more of that later – and everyone I speak to seems to be 20 per cent down. Read more »
- BOA successfully talks up the ‘Gong and south coast
  
  BOA president Katrina Greeves’ wrap-up on last week’s regional meeting in Wollongong.
  
  Over 10 local South Coast tourism operators joined BOA Committee representatives and members at the ‘BOA Talks South Coast’ event in Wollongong last Thursday to engage in lively debate regarding travel and tourism issues affecting the backpacker, student and youth market in the south coast region. Read more »
- What prison taught me about discounting
  
  Founder of Brokepacker.com Kevin Lippy explains there are three types of discounting ahead of the website’s launch tonight.
  
  A prison yard is a tough, volatile, dangerous, cut throat and an extremely unpredictable environment… Kind of like the Australian backpacking industry during low season. Read more »
- How many backpackers does it take to change a lightbulb?
  
  Thumbrella is conducting an exclusive industry survey this week, with just one question. How many of your customers are idiots? Read more »
- How’s business?
  
  So, how’s business? It’s a simple question, but it seems there’s no easy answer. Read more »
- Australian backpacking is the pulse we watch to gauge the health of the industry worldwide
  
  In this guest post, gapyear.com founder Tom Griffiths relects on the recent ATEC Backpacker and Youth Industry Conference and why Australia’s backpacking industry still leads the world.
  
  Like most of the delegates I spoke to, I found the recent ATEC Backpacker and Youth Industry Conference extremely interesting and useful. It’s very easy in these current times to set a safe agenda to cater for an industry licking its wounds, who want to hear good news stories and see rainbows ahead. Read more »
- McEvoy: ‘Put your tourism experiences on the map’
  
  Tourism Australia managing director Andrew McEvoy discusses the first stages of the There’s nothing like Australia campaign and urges the industry to get involved. Read more »

OTOs struggle with funding for youth sector

The need for better research and access to information for Tourism Organisations to lobby governments was a key message to come out of an Official Tourism Organisations (OTOs) strategy round table last week.

Taking place at the World Youth and Student Travel Conference (WYSTC) in Manchester it was found in most cases (the notable exception being Australia) OTOs struggled to get the student/ youth/ backpacker sector recognised in government tourism strategies.

David Jones director general of the World Youth Student & Educational (WYSE) Travel Confederation, summarised many of the challenges facing OTOs around the world including the need for governments to formulate long-term strategies to avoid funding and policy swaying with the changes of government. Jones explained how special events such as the Olympics and the Football World Cup at the national level or festivals and events at the regional level could easily divert a tourism organisation’s attention away from the youth sector, making it difficult to get it back on the agenda.

The sophisticated structure of the Australian industry, particularly with respect to the set up of the Backpacker Tourism Advisory Panel (BTAP) and Australian Tourism Export Council (ATEC) working to keep youth travel on the agenda of government tourism strategy, was held up as a leading light.

Yet all participants in the unique collaborative strategy session stressed that they needed better information and statistics to lobby their respective governments. Visit Britain undertook a global youth campaign with Lonely Planet five years ago, but there was no measurable data collected and the project was not continued. The participants that were in attendance all had awareness and focus on the youth sector above their absent counterparts even if they did face funding and government policy hurdles.

Jones suggested that there was a need for WYSE to develop more material on what strategies work and the potential creation of a blue-print for OTO youth marketing.

Rodney Harrex general manager – Europe of Tourism Australia emphasised “the importance of qualifying the youth and backpacking segments through ring fencing the segment by putting a value on it; which means you can put an Return On Investment on it”. Tourism Australia currently allocates 11% of their total marketing budget to youth.

As well as a strong Australian contingent from Tourism Australia, ATEC, Tourism NSW and Tourism Queensland other participants included Greece, Britain, France, Germany and South Africa at a national level and New York, Liverpool, London, Manchester, and Lyon at regional levels. Despite the importance of backpacking to the New Zealand tourism economy they were notably absent.

By Dan Roberts · September 29th, 2009 at 10:09 am