Images of Australia’s iconic attractions, gorgeous animals and vivid landscapes are continuing to have mass appeal to tourists and potential travellers globally, said Hon Steven Ciobo, the Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment in a recent release.
“Tourism Australia (TA) leads tourism bodies around the world when it comes to social media following – clocking up 7.9 million Facebook fans, 2.8 million Instagram followers and 471,000
supporters on Twitter, as of January 2018.
The number of followers of Tourism Australia’s social media accounts has grown by over 900,000 in the last 12 months – keeping Australia ahead of rival travel destinations like the United States (6.4 million Facebook fans), Great Britain (3.3 million Facebook fans) and New Zealand (2.8 million Facebook fans).
Some of the most engaging content on our social channels includes 4.8 million views of a Facebook video of a koala climbing on a keeper at Symbio Wildlife Park in New South Wales; and a reach of 989,000 people on an Instagram picture of Lake Hillier in Western Australia.
These exceptional statistics are expected to be compounded by Tourism Australia’s latest youth campaign, launched earlier this year, ‘Aussie News Today’.
Aussie News Today aims to attract more young people to Australia by capturing humorous and interesting content to be shared across Tourism Australia’s digital channels.
The youth market is critical to Australia’s tourism, representing a quarter of arrivals and almost half of all international visitor spend. Young travellers and working holiday makers travel further, spend
more per trip and stay longer than other travellers. In addition, just over half of all youth are repeat visitors to Australia.
Tourism is a pillar of the nation’s economy. Every dollar spent on tourism generates 81 cents in other parts of the economy, more than across mining, agriculture and financial sectors. Of this, 43 cents in
every dollar spent in tourism goes to regional Australia,” he said.