Tourism Australia welcomes new Emirates flights for Adelaide

The decision by Emirates to add Adelaide to its expanding global route network has been lauded as a ‘major tourism coup’ by team South Australia – the latest positive outcome of an ongoing strategy to attract and support new aviation services to Australia from key international markets.

Tourism Australia Managing Director Andrew McEvoy believes the new service will be especially popular with European travellers, providing direct access to Adelaide and access to the state’s tourism attractions via the Middle Eastern carrier’s Dubai hub.

“The new service is unquestionably a major tourism coup for South Australia and will greatly assist regional dispersal, which is especially relevant for European tourists who love to travel around our great country,” Mr McEvoy said.

“Emirates has been a key airline partner for us for a number of years now and it’s on the back of this close relationship, and because of a long term effort by the South Australia Tourism Commission and Adelaide airport, that the deal has been done, ” he said.

The South Australia capital will become the fifth Australian destination served by the Dubai-based carrier, which already flies to Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. Emirates will initially operate four services a week, before increasing to a daily operation at the beginning of February 2013.

Jane Jeffreys, Chief Executive, South Australian Tourism Commission, said the new service was a major game changer for South Australia in terms of international tourism generally and also for business tourism.

“Emirates is a significant win for South Australia given its extensive network through our key international markets in Europe and the United Kingdom.  In addition this new service also opens new doors to markets in the Middle East,” Ms Jeffreys said.

Mr McEvoy said that Tourism Australia would work closely with South Australia Tourism Commission and Adelaide airport to support and grow demand for the new route, and had already committed additional funding to support European marketing activity which would focus initially on UK and Germany.

“Strong aviation access is obviously critical to attracting and grow international visitation to our country – not only providing the air capacity but also helping to convert consumer desire to travel to Australia into travel bookings, through joint marketing activities such as we’re doing here with Emirates,” he said.

Last year, Tourism Australia spent a total of A$23 million partnering with 14 different airlines on 50 campaigns in 23 markets in cooperative marketing campaigns.

Emirates first began flying to Australia in 1996 and currently operates 70 flights per week to the country, serving Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth.