Tourism Australia’s signature event for showcasing Australia as a destination for business events takes on Sydney as 72 international corporate meeting and incentive decision makers (buyers) from 14 countries and 14 international media touchdown for Dreamtime 2011.
Hosted by Tourism Australia in partnership with Qantas and Business Events Sydney, Dreamtime offers Australia’s business events suppliers the opportunity to market their products and services to, and do business with, international incentive buyers.
Dreamtime is part of a wider strategy to support Australia’s tourism industry. Last November, Tourism Australia unveiled the 2020 Tourism Industry Potential – a rallying call to Australian industry and governments to grow tourism’s contribution from $70 billion in overnight expenditure to as much as $140 billion per cent by the year 2020.
Tourism Australia managing director Andrew McEvoy said Dreamtime was about building business relationships to grow mutual business opportunities between the Australian business industry and our customers around the world.
“Dreamtime is Tourism Australia’s signature event for the business events industry to do business on a global scale, connecting Australian incentive sellers with international buyers on their home ground,” McEvoy said.
“The format of Dreamtime provides our international buyers with the opportunity to experience Australia first-hand and how it can deliver for businesses looking to achieve outstanding results.
“For Australian sellers it is a cost-effective way to do business with international incentive buyers from key markets around the world,” Mr McEvoy said.
Dreamtime participants have been carefully selected to ensure they can deliver a return on investment and give Australian incentive sellers the support and tools they need in key markets of Asia, Japan, New Zealand, United States of America and the United Kingdom.
In addition to the Sydney business and networking program, Dreamtime features three days of educational visits in which buyers and media experience incentive and travel products in Melbourne, Adelaide, Uluru, Perth, Cairns, Gold Coast and the Whitsundays.
Qantas executive manager global sales, Stephen Thompson said “Qantas has supported Australia’s Dreamtime event since its inception and we are again delighted to partner with Tourism Australia to sponsor Dreamtime 2011 and showcase Australia to the world’s incentive travel trade.
“Dreamtime is an opportunity to celebrate and promote the wealth of tourism product and services Australia has on offer to the world. For Qantas, supporting the business events industry is fundamental to our role as the national carrier. Qantas offers international travellers our award winning A380 product, a network of both international and domestic lounges, the best in Australian food and wine and exceptional customer service,” he said.
Business events such as corporate meetings and incentives are a significant contributor to the Australian economy. In terms of delegate expenditure, the contribution of business events visitors was AUD$8.5 billion in 2010.
Since the 2020 Tourism Industry Potential was announced, Tourism Australia has been consulting with the business events industry to establish how the 2020 Potential would look for the sector. It has been identified that Australia’s business events sector has the potential to double expenditure from business events visitors to as much as $16 billion by 2020.
