More than 60 industry partners have backed Tourism Australia?s ?Best Jobs in the World? campaign, which has attracted applications from almost 200 countries around the world.
The competition is part of Tourism Australia’s multi award winning There’s Nothing Like Australia campaign – with Best Jobs specifically focussed on youth travel and working holiday makers.
Tourism Australia and partners including Virgin Australia, STA Travel and the states and territories received more than 600,000 applications from 330,000 people in 196 countries for the six jobs on offer.
The top 18 candidates will be invited to undergo a final assessment in Australia in the coming weeks, with the six successful candidates announced on Friday 21 June.
Since the competition was launched, Tourism Australia?s working holiday maker Facebook page has grown from 150,000 to 430,000 fans with young people around the world actively seeking information about a working holiday in Australia. This builds on Tourism Australia’s more than four million general Facebook fans – the largest destination Facebook site in the world.
Tourism Australia Managing Director Andrew McEvoy believes the success of the campaign to date owed much to the joined up approach being taken with the State and Territories and the great jobs they presented to represent some of the best of Australia.
“Together they provide a great representation of Australia including magnificent landscapes and scenery, unique nature and wildlife, cosmopolitan cities, great food and wine, an enviable lifestyle and a sense of fun,” Mr McEvoy said.
He also praised the industry for its enthusiastic backing of the campaign. ?More than 60 operators have linked to the competition, helping to spread the message about holidaying and working in Australia through their distribution and publicity channels, and extending the reach of the campaign much further than we?d be able to do working on our own,? he said.
STA Travel, one of the campaign?s key partners, recently reported increases in sales and enquiries from its two biggest markets to Australia – a 17 cent increase in its UK sales, and 68 per cent spike in its German website traffic – which it attributed directly to the campaign.
To help harness the growing support of industry, Tourism Australia has developed a partner pack detailing how they can get involved, available to view on www.tourism.australia.com.
Mr McEvoy said the competition provided an excellent platform to entice more young people from around the world to come to Australia to holiday, but also earn extra funds to extend their time and see more of the country?s unique tourism experiences.
?We?re now going to capitalise on the enormous interest in this campaign by working with Virgin Australia and STA Travel to sell holidays and working holidays to those who missed out on one of the six best jobs,? he said.
Youth is an important target market for Australian tourism, currently representing 26 per cent (1.6m) of all international visitors to Australia each year. On average they spend more than A$7,000 per trip in Australia.
In 2012, Working Holiday Makers contributed A$2.5 billion to the Australian economy, spending on average A$13,000 during their stay. 136,155 WHM visas were granted for the six month period to 31 December 2012, a 23.2 per cent increase compared to the same period in 2011.
The ?Best Jobs in the World? campaign is supported by Destination NSW, Tourism Northern Territory, Tourism Victoria, Tourism Western Australia, Tourism and Events Queensland and South Australian Tourism Commission.
In addition a number of key commercial partners are supporting the campaign, including Virgin Australia, STA Travel, Citibank, DELL, IKEA, Sony Music and Monster.com.
[box type=”download”]For downloadable print and broadcast campaign materials visit the following Link – http://medianet.multimediarelease.com.au/bundles/318b410f-05bd-45e3-a2a1-a40ffe387b76[/box]