House of Assembly Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1) 55 1 Parliament of South Australia House of Assembly published Question Time International Visitor Strategy International Visitor Strategy Ms THOMPSON House of Assembly Davenport International Visitor Strategy Ms THOMPSON (Davenport) (15:03): My question is for the Minister for Tourism. Can the minister update the house on the international visitor strategy for South Australia? The Hon. Z.L. BETTISON House of Assembly Ramsay Minister for Tourism Minister for Multicultural Affairs International Visitor Strategy The Hon. Z.L. BETTISON (Ramsay—Minister for Tourism, Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (15:03): I thank the member for Davenport for this question. Last week, we got the nation's attention by winning the Magic Round, and this week we got the world's attention by announcing that we will have LIV Golf here in April— Members interjecting: The Speaker House of Assembly The SPEAKER: Order! The Hon. Z.L. BETTISON House of Assembly Ramsay Minister for Tourism Minister for Multicultural Affairs The Hon. Z.L. BETTISON: This is exactly what we want to do. Members interjecting: The Speaker House of Assembly The SPEAKER: Order! The Hon. Z.L. BETTISON House of Assembly Ramsay Minister for Tourism Minister for Multicultural Affairs The Hon. Z.L. BETTISON: We want to build back our international tourism here. Members interjecting: The Speaker House of Assembly The SPEAKER: Member for Schubert! The Hon. Z.L. BETTISON House of Assembly Ramsay Minister for Tourism Minister for Multicultural Affairs The Hon. Z.L. BETTISON: Of course, we have a series of events that international tourists are interested in. The Santos Tour Down Under, back in its traditional format— Members interjecting: The Speaker House of Assembly The SPEAKER: Member for Hartley! The Hon. Z.L. BETTISON House of Assembly Ramsay Minister for Tourism Minister for Multicultural Affairs The Hon. Z.L. BETTISON: —brings people here who love cycling. This time, we are going to have the elite men and the elite women coming here. We have it all over South Australia, with people looking at our beautiful landscapes. Mr Whetstone interjecting: The Speaker House of Assembly The SPEAKER: Member for Chaffey! The Hon. Z.L. BETTISON House of Assembly Ramsay Minister for Tourism Minister for Multicultural Affairs The Hon. Z.L. BETTISON: Of course, in July the FIFA Women's World Cup will be here and eyes will be on Australia. But of course we've got a great draw and people will be watching us here. Recently, the ICC T20—some fantastic games, and of course tomorrow night the one-day international, when England plays Australia. This is really important to draw attention to our state and to attract people to our state. Why is this important? Because prior to COVID, the international tourism economic impact was $1.2 billion. That is an incredibly important part of our visitor economy. We need to build that back with a combo of events and strategies. Important, of course, is getting aviation back on track, and I was able to announce yesterday that we will be back— Mr Tarzia interjecting: The Speaker House of Assembly The SPEAKER: Member for Hartley! The Hon. Z.L. BETTISON House of Assembly Ramsay Minister for Tourism Minister for Multicultural Affairs The Hon. Z.L. BETTISON: —to 90 per cent of flights in January. Mr Brown interjecting: The Speaker House of Assembly The SPEAKER: Member for Florey! The Hon. Z.L. BETTISON House of Assembly Ramsay Minister for Tourism Minister for Multicultural Affairs The Hon. Z.L. BETTISON: This is about jobs. This is about small business. This is about the whole of South Australia benefiting from these tourists coming to spend their money, spend their time loving our state and coming back time and time again. The South Australian Tourism Commission focuses on the key markets of the UK, North America, India, New Zealand, Singapore and Europe. What we do is we focus on these media and trade visitations and these events. These strategies have been quite intense. This is about marketing, but it's also about bringing people here. We recently hosted the largest famil since the start of the pandemic. The Travel + Leisure magazine travel advisory board and senior executives from leading travel agents and journalists in the US were hosted here across the state in various regions. This highly influential group drive more than $US14.5 billion in annual revenue. These are important influencers. They are buyers and they are travel agents. They are the people who put us on the map to get people to come here and book. Recently, expressions of interest went out to industry inviting our international-ready tourism operators on two separate international roadshows in 2023—North America in March and the UK and Europe in June. The operators will meet with key travel partners to help them sell South Australia and drive international visitor expenditure. This is on top of our wildly successful working holiday-maker ten-pound Pom opportunity that we went out on, when 16,000 people registered their interest—absolutely amazing. We were trending twice this year because people wanted to know about South Australia and they wanted to come here. That was launched in April, and of course in September we held our global industry forum. I was able to meet with all the SATC representatives across the board. They spent time going out to see what we have to offer and sell South Australia to the world.