Page 2695 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 16 September 2014
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Director of Corporate Development for Cathay Pacific Airlines. We took the opportunity to reiterate the strong business case for direct flights in to Canberra, including, of course, the capability of our international airport, its curfew-free status, the demonstrated market of 7,800 passengers per week travelling between the Canberra Airport catchment area and Europe and Asia, with 50 per cent of them—that is, nearly 4,000 passengers a week—currently using Singapore as a gateway, and the inevitability of direct international flights between Canberra and Asia and the advantage for airlines of being a “first mover”.
While any decision on direct flights will be a commercial one for the airlines, we are certainly working closely with the airport to leave no stone unturned to present the ACT’s credentials. We will continue to advocate for international direct flights and the estimated 1,100 jobs and $139 million in economic activity that will flow from them.
Of course, all sectors in our economy will benefit from direct international connectivity, but tourism is most immediately well placed. Singapore is consistently ranked amongst the top 10 countries of origin for Canberra’s international visitors. The broader South-East Asian region—including Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Hong Kong—now consistently features as one of the ACT’s top three inbound markets.
Deepening the connections between tourism providers in Canberra and Singaporean travel agents is a major pillar of this strategy to increase the ACT’s overnight visitor expenditure to $2.5 billion by 2020, and this was a major focus of the tourism aspects of the delegation.
An important event during the week was the Singapore travel agents workshop, which attracted 78 product managers and travel agents from Singapore and Malaysia. At a higher level the VIP travel trade and media lunch was attended by 60 heads of agencies and travel media representatives and generated a number of very positive articles promoting Canberra in South-East Asian travel publications.
The ACT was well represented at these functions, with Accor Hotels Canberra, the Canberra Rex Hotel, Pialligo Estate, the National Museum of Australia, the National Capital Attractions Association, the National Zoo and Aquarium, the Australian Institute of Sport, the Canberra Airport, the Australian Hotels Association, the National Convention Centre and the Intercontinental Hotel Group all participating.
The Singapore-Hong Kong delegation also included the first coordinated release of the CBR branding in an important offshore market. The logo was used extensively throughout the delegation, providing fresh, new imaging for Canberra that we found resonated well with both the Canberra delegates and the people we came in contact with during the course of the week. It was also pleasing to see the delegation achieving widespread publicity back here in Canberra, and the role that the brand was able to play in that messaging.
We were also fortunate in being able to leverage publicity from the Singaporean President’s visit to Canberra in the week prior, and also the University of Canberra
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