New tourism campaign to attract youth to Australia

Tourism Australia has launched a new youth campaign, 'Aussie News Today,' to attract more young people to Australia.

Aussie News Today was launched atop the Sydney Harbour Bridge by former Wallabies rugby union star Nick Cummins, aka the 'The Honey Badger'. Aussie News Today will capture humorous and interesting stories about Australia and share them with young people through Tourism Australia's digital channels.

The Honey Badger will be joined by TV presenter Teigan Nash and former Home and Away actor Lincoln Lewis – all three will be the anchors for Aussie News Today. In addition, eight winners of a competition announced earlier this year will travel around Australia in campervans collecting stories for Aussie News Today.

Aussie News Today aims to make Australia the most desirable destination in the world for youth travellers.

The campaign will initially focus on four of Australia's largest youth markets - the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Italy - and builds on back to back working holiday maker campaigns rolled out by Tourism Australia in key western and eastern markets between October 2016 and June 2017.

This is the third in a series of youth and working holiday maker (WHM) campaigns funded through an additional $10 million provided to Tourism Australia as part of the Turnbull Government's WHM reform package.

Young people are a critical market for Australia, representing a quarter of arrivals and almost half of all international visitor spend. Young travellers and working holiday makers go further, spend more per trip and stay longer than other travellers. In addition, just over half of all youth are repeat visitors to Australia.

I encourage all the tourism businesses, youth, working holiday makers and Aussies to get involved in the campaign and submit news ideas to #AussieNewsToday.

Australia is setting new tourism records as Tourism Australia continues to receive record funding from the Turnbull Government.