Football fever high, international markets update, river recovery
Matildas mania has well and truly swept across South Australia this week, with the FIFA Women’s World Cup semi final seeing fans pack into our two live sites in the city and at many hospitality venues across the state.
More than 9,000 fans headed to the FIFA Fan Festival at Festival Plaza and our pop-up live site at The Drive on Wednesday. The Australian Hotels Association SA came out ahead of the game saying they expected it to be the biggest night for Adelaide’s pubs and clubs since the pandemic.
While the on-field result wasn’t quite what we wanted, fans get another chance to watch their national team tomorrow, when Australia takes on Sweden in the third-place play-off. Our FIFA Fan Festival will be open from 2pm with plenty of entertainment, and again on Sunday for the FIFA World Cup final from 6pm when England goes head-to-head with Spain.
It was welcome news last Thursday that Australia has returned to China’s Approved Destination Status (ADS) scheme. An arrangement which allows Chinese tourists to travel to Australia in guided groups, the reinstatement is a positive step forward in recovering visitation. It will lead to greater promotion in China of Australia as a tourism destination more generally and follows the recent launch in China of Tourism Australia’s ‘Come and Say G’Day’ campaign, which I had the opportunity to attend.
It also comes as we continue discussions with key international airlines, as we work towards recovering international tourism more generally – a market worth $1.2 billion prior to the pandemic.
There is now less than one month to go until applications close for our Experience Nature Tourism Fund. This is a great opportunity for businesses to begin or further grow their nature-based tourism offerings, which we know an increasing number of visitors are looking for as part of their travel.
It was wonderful to hear reports from businesses in Mannum about the success of Illuminate Adelaide’s River Lights installation. It attracted more than 20,000 attendees over the 10-day event, helping boost expenditure in the region and further drive flood recovery efforts.
Staying with river recovery, bookings close on Tuesday for round two of our River Revival Voucher program. This will wrap up final bookings following the second chance draw and it appears to have made a positive impact, generating millions of dollars in booking value alone. I look forward to sharing more on this next week, after the booking deadline.
Emma Terry
Chief Executive Officer