Measuring the Economic Impact of Australian Tourism Marketing Expenditure

Abstract

The objective of this study is to quantify the effects of marketing expenditure by the Australian Tourist Commission (ATC). Cointegration analysis and a dynamic modelling approach are used to estimate the elasticity estimates of income, price, price of substitute, cost of travel and marketing expenditure for Australia's four major tourism markets, USA, Japan, UK and New Zealand. ATC marketing expenditure has a positive effect on international tourism demand and the magnitude of the effect varies from country to country. In promoting international visitor arrivals to Australia, not only ATC and non-ATC marketing but the word-of-mouth effect and visitor satisfaction leading to repeat visits also play an important role. The performance of the ATC marketing strategy measured in dollar return per dollar invested in the international tourism marketing is higher in the New Zealand market, followed by the UK, Japan and US markets. The estimated overall average dollar return per dollar invested in international tourism marketing is 8:1.