What’s the main purpose of your visit to the UK and who have you been meeting with?
I have been on the road a little while and came to the UK via India – both are big markets for the state.
It is always energising to be out and about talking to partners and seeing where travel is at in our key markets.
Being in the UK gives us an opportunity to meet with some of the people we deal with on all sides of the business, including key distribution partners.
There’s nothing like being in the market to better understand what partners are doing and the challenges they face and where the trends are.
For us, the good news is Victoria sems to be heading in the right direction for visitor numbers and current traveller trends – and that helps us execute our strategy better.
Visit Victoria looks after major events as well, which is a bit different to other state tourism organisations.
There were certainly a lot of Brits and Irish at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) in July for the British Lions (v Australia) rugby match. Does an event like this provide a valuable showcase for Melbourne and the state in general?
From a Melbourne perspective, it was fantastic to have 90,000 people at the MCG. It is a great venue and the feedback I got was that it put on a great show.
Significantly, we had 40,000 fans from out of state present, and they experienced the full MCG experience but also discovered how close the stadium is to the city.
Melbourne has so much to offer and now we have 40,000 new advocates who are back home talking about their experience here.
Throughout your career you have worked substantially on sports and sports promotions, including many major events. With the Rugby World Cup coming up in 2027 is this an increasing important sector for your tourism sector?
Yes, but our sporting culture has long been a draw card.
We think it is a natural strength of ours. I have been to a lot of sports venues around the world but there are few cities that can offer the line-up (of sports venues) that Melbourne can.
Aside from the MCG, there is Melbourne Park and the Rod Laver Arena, which is the venue for the Australian Open (tennis), the Melbourne Rectangular Stadium (currently known as AAMI), and the Marvel Stadium.
Then there is Albert Park Circuit, home of the Melbourne Grand Prix.
Melbourne has 26,300 room spaces a night to fill, the largest hotel inventory in Australia, in its Central Business District, including big-name hotels such as Ritz, Four Points and W.
After leaving your hotel, on the way to those sporting venues you see bars, restaurants, theatres, cultural places, so the intensity of experiences you get in Melbourne is strong.
You were the head of public affairs for Cricket Australia for three years. How enjoyable was that role?
Oh, I loved it! It was a terrific opportunity. In an Australian context, it was a golden generation of players with Shane Warne, Glen McGrath and Steve Waugh among the big names of the time.
There were a few challenges along the ways – like trying to get UK journalists into Zimbabwe when Robert Mugabe was still in charge. I managed to do it, except they changed the rules and the journalists got detained at the airport – but it was fun and I really enjoyed it.
How well do you feel the UK trade and our readers, travel agents, know what is on offer in Victoria, particularly beyond Melbourne and the Yarra Valley?
I think that this is where we have big opportunities.
There is so much new product to talk about in Victoria. When we held Australian Tourism Exchange (ATE) in 2024 the most consistent feedback we got centred around how much we have in the state.
That was the first time we had hosted the trade show for 15 years; we were due to have it in 2020 but Covid got in the way.
We have had a lot of new products come into the market in the past few years and we must work hard to make sure the message is getting out consistently.
But for the team here in the UK and back in Melbourne we see this as an opportunity.
We always have new stories to tell from across all our regions.
I am sure there are large gaps in trade knowledge, but that is what gives us an opening. What I can say is each time people come back to Victoria they will find something new to do or a new way of experiencing a familiar product.
For example, we have a couple of small tour operators down in Port Arlington who have built a mussels tour business. It’s the most magnificent experience for a few friends: out on a small wooden boat, harvesting mussels from the ocean floor, putting them in a pot and then eating them for lunch. They have only been going for around 18 months and is already a top experience.
What I love is that Victoria is fill of passionate, inventive people who come up with creative ideas who really want to share their products with others. Travel seems to attract people like this.
You have a new campaign, Every Bit Different – what you are trying to capture with this tagline?
Well, I think one of the things that is strong about Victoria is that there is so much variety.
It comprises only 3% of the landmass of Australia but there is an extraordinary variety of things to do.
Every part of the state, from our big cities to our coastal towns to our small villages, has its unique components.
We have beaches and we have mountains; we have snow and surf; we have kangaroos and we have three-star restaurants…so framing all this together is what we are trying to say with our Every Bit Different tag.
One of the strengths about campaigns such as this is they start off with an essential truth…that is that we are a unique part of Australia with different experiences to what you will find in say Sydney, Brisbane or Western Australia.
We think Victoria’s diversity just lends itself to telling the story in the best possible way.
Every Bit Different has launched in the UK and we will be building on this over the coming months.
We have the Ashes cricket test match coming up later this year (starting on Boxing Day), then we will roll into a couple of other things. For example, we are planning to celebrate the 150th anniversary of test cricket in 2027.
Going forward, we want to continue to put out regular news about what Victoria has to offer… and Every Bit Different platform gives us a way to do this.
You also have another current initiative that focuses on itineraries that highlight various niche sectors such as wine, wildlife and coastal regions. What are your expectations for this and are UK tour operators already picking up on these?
We are starting to see a good response and are working with tour operators (Ed’s note: now available through Audley and Freedom Destinations).
We know consumers are looking for assistance in navigating what is an incredibly complicated world when it comes to booking the right holiday for them.
Our focussed itineraries tune into some of the trends that we see consumers looking for and help them solve a few of their questions when they have a world of choices.
We think we have tapped into some threads consumers are seeking, and therefore our distribution partners can tailor their product accordingly.
Whether it is wellness – an increasingly interesting and popular part of the mix – nature, wildlife or wine, this is a coherent way of organising our experiences in a way that simplifies things.
It should also help agents when pitching Victoria to their clients.
There is today an ever-growing and at times bewildering range of distribution channels for consumers to buy travel, but it sounds like the trade is still a major focus for Victoria?
It is and particularly in this (UK) market.
Different markets have different ways of buying travel and varying levels of maturity, but our UK distribution partners are core for us.
It is a very good and well-established system, and we have invested a lot of time and effort getting to this point, and we really enjoy working with our partners here.
They are a very important channel for us.
As you said, distribution is one of the most complicated things to get your head around – the path between a product and the consumer has never been more winding; you can go down a whole range of warrens, but if it was easy, everyone would be doing it.
