AUSTRALIAN WINE TOURISM TO BENEFIT FROM NEW ONLINE PRESENCE
Wine Australia says its €576,000 investment in the Australian Tourism Data Warehouse (ATDW), will make it easier to market wine tourism experiences online and expand customer reach.
The investment, funded by the Australian Government’s €32 million Export and Regional Wine Support Package, has enabled upgrades in ATDW which allow Australian wine businesses to update their business profiles to better promote cellar door experiences, wine varieties, cuisine types, accreditations and wine-making practices.
Wine Australia’s Chief Executive Andreas Clark said that as Australia’s national platform for digital tourism information, ATDW is the most powerful source of product information for the Australian travel industry.
“The platform allows wineries and wine tourism operators to manage their details across an extensive network of government, regional tourism travel booking websites, through one single listing,” said Clark. “Wine businesses will soon be able to improve user experience and drive online exposure with the integration of Google My Business functionality to all wine tourism ATDW listings. The feature provides wineries with an option for ATDW to automatically update their Google My Business account with details that exist in both platforms such as opening hours and contact details.”
Wine businesses will also be able to access enhanced analytics within the ATDW platform to better understand their digital reach, with access to information about what tourism websites their businesses appear on and associated performance data.
Clark says since the first round of enhancements were delivered in May 2020, Australian wine tourism listings in ATDW have increased by 40%, to over 1400.
“It’s encouraging that within the first few months of going live, over half of the wineries listed have taken advantage of the new wine-related features to promote their wine tourism experiences. We encourage wine producers to take advantage of the additional promotional opportunities available to them,” he said. “The additional investment in Google functionality will amplify the online presence of Australian wine businesses and allow wine businesses to simplify their marketing efforts, with the ability to link to a free Google My Business account. They can also access a comprehensive suite of analytics to better understand their online performance.”
Jan Hutton, ATDW’s Chief Executive, added: “We’re excited to support the Australian wine sector in its tourism efforts with this partnership with Google. ATDW will make it easier for wineries to showcase their offering and provide up-to-date information across all tourism sites that their business appears on, in addition to their Google listing. By managing one listing, businesses not only minimise the effort spent in maintaining their details across many online tourism websites, they also increase their exposure to important audiences, and extend their online reach through all Google platforms, making them more discoverable online.”
Clark says Australian wine exports declined by 4% in value to €1.8bn in the 12 months to March 2021, driven principally by the toll taken by high Chinese tariffs. Wine Australia’s latest Export Report reveals that export volume declined by 1% to 724 million litres in that period, while the average price per litre for wine exports declined by 3% to €2.44 free on board (FOB).
Clark says the decline in exports was due principally to a steep decline in exports to mainland China as well as the cumulative effects of three consecutive lower vintage in Australia leading to less volume available to export.
“Notwithstanding the impact of China’s tariffs, we were still looking at a potential downturn in exports over this period simply due to the supply situation,” he added.
