In Brief

Perth Gearing Up For ATE 2005

After a successful Australian Tourism Exchange (ATE) 2004, Western Australia's Perth that has taken on the responsibility for ATE 2005 is gearing up to make the event even better. Ross Gregory, director marketing - Western Hemisphere and future markets, Western Australia Tourism Commission said, "This is the first time that ATE will be held outside the East coast of Australia. To cater to this large event, the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre is being built at a cost of AU$ 300 million. The government has put in AU$ 1 million into this project. It would certainly be a state-of-the-art convention centre targeted at attracting the potential MICE market to Perth. Being situated right in the harbour of the city, the convention centre's capacity would accommodate 2,500 people and 16,000 exhibition floor space. We are currently putting together the task force for the event and have received co-operation from the entire industry."

Elaborating further on the Board's tourism plan, Gregory disclosed, "We are putting in place a new business model for India. We are also looking at strategic alliances with airlines. It is a fact that India has enormous potential as a country but the number of visitors we receive are quite low (approximately 5,000 annually). The strong segments are students and business travel that also includes the incentive market. In keeping with this trend, we are looking at developing the niche market. On the promotional side, we will continue to conduct familiarisation trips to focus on destination promotion. Perth has a lot to offer and there is no doubt about it, but we are going ahead cautiously. Our main concern is getting the right infrastructure in place, which is being worked out."

HKTB Celebrates 1.69m Visitor Arrivals

The Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB) announced that Hong Kong welcomed 1,694,392 visitor arrivals in May 2004, easily the highest May figure yet recorded. This represents a massive 297 per cent increase on the equivalent figure for May 2003, when Hong Kong was still in the grip of SARS, and 27.2 per cent growth on the May 2002 performance. The total exceeds the May 2002 figure - the previous highest for May - by more than 360,000. Said HKTB executive director Clara Chong, "May was traditionally one of Hong Kong's quieter months for tourism, hence reaching nearly 1.7 million arrivals in the month was a significant achievement. The performance of our long-haul markets has been very encouraging and demonstrates that our tourism growth is coming from a number of different sources."

For the first five months of 2004 combined, total arrivals stand at 8.37 million, a growth of 60.2 per cent compared with the same period in 2003 and 32.2 per cent with that of 2002.

India visitor arrivals are showing a growth of 18.3 per cent in May 2004 compared to the May 2002 results; as family visitors have been taking advantage of school holidays. Indian arrivals for the first five months of 2004 are showing a 75.4 per cent increase on the 2003 figures.