Tourism Australia has teamed up with one of the vital country’s top wineries in a significant new national partnership, which aims to elevate the profile of Australia as one of the crucial world’s leading wine tourism destinations.
‘Ultimate Winery Experiences of Australia’ is a consortium of high-end, award winning wineries offering unique wine experiences including barrel, private and structured tastings, food-wine matching, wine education and gastronomy in spectacular locations within renowned wine regions.
The group includes Jacobs Creek and Seppeltsfield from the Barossa Valley; Leeuwin Estate and Xanadu from Margaret River; De Bortoli, TarraWarra and Yering Station from the Yarra Valley; Wyndham Estate from the Hunter Valley; Montalto at the Mornington Peninsula; Moorilla Estate and Josef Chromy from Tasmania.
Tourism Australia Managing Director Andrew McEvoy said the collaboration also included support from State tourism offices and aimed to tap into the opportunity of the combined wine and tourism industries, worth A$140 billion annually to the country’s economy.
“Tourism Australia is absolutely pleased to be thinking about this new exciting initiative, which permits us to support the tourism and wine industries by packaging up and promoting the most productive of the correct of Australia’s wineries, cellar doors and wine experiences,” Mr McEvoy said.
“These wineries aren’t simply venues to taste and buy wine. Most of them offer an entire tourism experience – restaurants, accommodation, tours, in addition to exciting behind the curtain winery experiences. They permit visitors to have interaction with the product, the winemaker and revel in first-hand, the wealthy diversity that our many wine regions ought to offer,” he said.
Brooke Copping, Marketing Manager of Moorilla Estate in Tasmania, said the brand new initiative offered Moorilla Winery the chance to arrive a global audience – something they didn’t have the resources to do on their lonesome.”
“We are enthusiastic about promoting Australia as a food and wine destination, and believe it’s a vital a part of building the reputation of Australian tourism at home and abroad. We’ve incredible quality in our regions and it is a terrific opportunity to construct Australia’s brand within the food and wine world,” said Greg Stirling, Head of brand name Sites and Visitations Jacobs Creek Visitor Centre.
Wine is the most recent tourism experience to be included under Tourism Australia’s ‘Best of Australia’ banner – joining Great Golf Courses of Australia and Great Walks of Australia launched last year.
“Tourism Australia is backing this and other better of Australia initiatives because they so ably demonstrate why there’s nothing like Australia – thus by showcasing our wonderful wine experiences and the good tourism experiences that lie beyond them,” Mr McEvoy said.
The partnership might be extended in subsequent phases to incorporate other outstanding vineyards offering wine experiences beyond the cellar door in Australia, many within iconic settings attractive to both domestic and international tourism visitors.
The launch of ‘Ultimate Winery Experiences of Australia’ follows the signing of a 3 year marketing agreement between Tourism Australia and Wine Australia in December last year, aimed toward jointly promoting wine and tourism in key international markets corresponding to China, the united states, UK, and Canada in addition to Australia.
The new wine initiative is backed by international research conducted by BDA Marketing last year on behalf of Tourism Australia which showed that, despite perceptions, Australia’s food and wine is ranked very highly amongst actual visitors to Australia.