Q: Patricia, it’s great to see you in Australia again. Your presence here is clearly an indication of how the Australian market is viewed by VisitBritain.
A: Australia is really important to us – it’s our fourth most valuable market. We’re reckoning Australians will spend about £1.7 billion this year from 1.1 million visits and that spend will increase by about 30% by 2030 to about £2.2 billion.
We also like Aussies because they stay quite a long time when they visit – the average is about 13 days – and they spend on average about £1,300.
They also travel outside London and our big push from the government is to get tourism to deliver growth right across the country.
About half of our international visitors don’t go outside London, but with Australians about two thirds of them do go outside the capital, so they have an appetite to explore.
Q: How important is this trade mission coming down here to spread the word?
A: It’s a competitive world and every destination is competing for the Australian dollar so we have to be here and competing.
We’ve got to be here and telling a story that appeals but also updating that story for different audiences as well.
Of all our missions, this is the one where we have the biggest cohort of travel agents coming and our suppliers have just loved it. It’s just the real coal face intelligence they get from speaking to travel agents.
Q: Could this become an annual event?
A: It really depends on what the appetite of the market is like and what the suppliers want. We want to deliver where suppliers feel real value. They’re going to use this to grow the market so let’s see.
Q: Have you noticed any particular trends in the people coming to Britain from Australia?
A: What we can see and what I’ve heard is the robustness of the premium market, which we’re seeing in other markets as well. People are prepared to spend money if the product is right so we have to get the product right.
In Australia, the ‘bank of mum and dad’ are often funding the travel of the younger audience and we do quite well in that 25 to 40 age group.
And then you hope that the traditional backpacker market will continue to want to travel the world and Britain’s part of that.
Q: Have the ongoing problems in the Middle East affected inbound numbers to the UK?
A: Of course it has because half of our connecting flights come through the Middle East and it’s not just the impact of that immediately, but the uncertainty that it creates in a market that likes to book quite a while in advance.
So those figures I gave you earlier aren’t quite as strong as we thought they were going to be, but we think there will be pent up demand.
We also have British Airways coming back to Australia (flying daily to Melbourne from January 2027) and I was talking to Emirates who were saying they’re almost back to their normal capacity. Then of course we’ve got Project Sunrise (direct Sydney to London, October 2027) coming up from Qantas.
So you can see that commercial confidence coming and that will certainly drive travel and make it accessible. We certainly need the airline routes from here.
Q: Do you think Project Sunrise is going to be a game changer in terms of travel to and from the UK to Australia?
A: It’s really interesting, isn’t it? I think it will make Britain seem closer but I hope that they will use it to tell a bigger story than just selling tickets.
Q: Aussies watch a lot of British TV shows and movies set in the UK. Playing Devil’s Advocate here for a moment, is selling Britain to Australians such a hard task?
A: Well, it’s certainly a fun job. Is it a hard task? No, because it’s a great country to be able to sell.
As it happens, we’ve had a boom in films and TV shows being set in Britain and on location recently because of tax breaks the government has given. That has worked very well in underpinning our ‘Starring Great Britain’ campaign, which has been very popular.
But I don’t think you can rest on your laurels, can you? There are lots of destinations spending a huge amount of money to get Australians to travel there and if you don’t look keen and if you don’t look as if you want people to come, they will go elsewhere. People want to go where they feel welcomed.
We have a great product, but you’ve got to be out there and telling our story in a way that connects with people.
Q: Do you still see travel agents as a vital channel in getting your message across to would-be travellers to Britain?
A: They are absolutely crucial here. I’ve been at VisitBritain for a while now and pre-COVID we thought the travel world was going to go to OTAs and we would just need to work with a handful of OTAs and we’d get the entire world.
Now, talking to travel agents, they are saying that people are going on AI and they’re getting the advice but they do not have the confidence to trust that and to book with it. So they’ll come in better informed, but they will still want that personal judgement.
In Australia, people who are travelling are often spending quite a chunk of money and quite a chunk of time on complex itineraries. So the travel agent is absolutely crucial here.
