The Australian Tourist Commission (ATC) today announced Melbourne, the Gold Coast and Cairns as the hosts for the first Asian Business Tourism Famil to be held later this year.

Speaking at the Meeting Industry Association Australia (MIAA) conference in Newcastle today, ATC Executive General Manager, Marketing Development, Stephen O`Neill said the eight-day famil would help to build awareness of Australia as a business tourism destination.

The famil will bring 25 decision makers from companies in ten countries across the region to Australia, Mr O`Neill said. This famil will help to their increase knowledge of Australia as a world-class destination for incentives or corporate meetings and will highlight the spectrum of experiences available to suit a range of budgets.

It is important to secure the support of corporate decision makers as they are the vital link to securing new corporate tourism business for Australia and Asia offers enormous potential as a source of business tourism visitors to Australia, particularly from the insurance, IT/technology and automotive industries.

Corporate groups from Asia are on average larger than groups from other international destinations, sometimes attracting as many as 4,000 participants. It is therefore important for us to demonstrate our capacity to host groups and events of all sizes and to build our share of incentive travel from these countries.

Over the past twelve months incentive travel from a number of key Asian markets has been strong with new business from Taiwan, Korea, Thailand, India and Hong Kong. We need to ensure this trend continues.

The ATC`s first Asian Business Tourism corporate famil will bring up to 25 target customers from Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, China, Korea, India, Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia to Australia.

The ATC will be working closely with the Melbourne Convention and Visitor Bureau, the Gold Coast Tourism Bureau, and Cairns and Region Convention Bureau to host the event.

Mr O`Neill said the ATC currently had a campaign in Asia, Choose Australia, and the corporate famil was just one component. The ATC will also be holding Corporate Famils with key businesses in Europe and the United States.

The ATC has committed $2 million over two years towards an integrated global marketing campaign to build the awareness of Australia as a business tourism destination. This will include advertising campaigns, producing collateral to assist Australia in securing new business from the key markets of Asia, the US and the UK.