[04/03/12 Media.Australia] Asian superstars to advocate Australia

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Show Lo and Rainie Yang at Graffiti Lane, Melbourne

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Show Lo and Rainie Yang at Flinders Street Railway Station, Melbourne

Key facts

Tourism Australia has enlisted the support of two of Asia’s most popular celebrities as it seeks to attract more travellers from China, Australia’s fastest growing and most valuable market for international visitors.
Show Lo and Rainie Yang - two Taiwanese pop singers and TV stars with a combined online following of more than 25 million fans - are to star in a new online drama series being filmed in Victoria, Tasmania and New South Wales.

Key quotes

"Show Lo and Rainie Yang are extremely popular within Greater China. Their appeal, magnified through this new online drama series, will create a great platform for us to promote the very best of Australia." Andrew McEvoy, Managing Director, Tourism Australia

Full story

Tourism Australia has enlisted the support of two of Asia’s most popular celebrities as it seeks to attract more travellers from China, Australia’s fastest growing and most valuable market for international visitors.

Show Lo and Rainie Yang - two Taiwanese pop singers and TV stars with a combined online following of more than 25 million fans - are to star in a new online drama series being filmed in Victoria, Tasmania and New South Wales and which will be broadcast online to up to 10 million viewers across Greater China.

Tourism Australia Managing Director Andrew McEvoy believes that their significant online presence across Greater China makes Show Lo and Rainie Yang the perfect advocates to help promote Australia as a holiday destination to its fastest growing and most important overseas market.

Australia will also provide the backdrop for a series of music videos for Show Lo's forthcoming new album.

 “Show Lo and Rainie Yang are extremely popular within Greater China. Their appeal, magnified through this new online drama series, will create a great platform for us to promote the very best of Australia,” Mr McEvoy said.

“This campaign is another example of the power of advocacy through social media and digital platforms in tourism marketing, allowing us to reach an international audience through the web which they are actively using to plan and book holidays.”

Tourism Australia’s initiative is being supported by Tourism Victoria, Tourism Tasmania and Destination NSW, who will each have an opportunity to showcase the attractions and experiences from their state featured in the drama, through a series of short destination videos which will broadcast alongside each of the drama’s five episodes.

“Working with our State Tourism partners in Victoria, Tasmania and New South Wales, we’ve been able to maximise Show Lo and Rainie Yang's visit and display more of Australia’s unparalleled natural beauty, contemporary cities and extensive range of tourism offering.

Tourism Australia is planning a series of promotional and PR activities to support the Taiwanese stars' visit, including online promotions on its social media platforms and campaign website, direct mail campaign and tactical activity with travel agents and airline partner, Cathay Pacific.

Show Lo is also part of Tourism Australia’s Friends of Australia global advocacy network of opinion leaders and celebrities, who work closely with Tourism Australian to generate ‘word of mouth’ buzz about Australia and promote the country as a visitor destination.

During a previous promotional visit to Far Northern Queensland, Show Lo encouraged his Chinese followers to vote for the Great Barrier Reef in last year's New7Wonders campaign. Rainie Yang will be invited by Tourism Australia to join the program during her visit.

“Creating relationships with international opinion leaders and celebrities like Show Lo who advocate Australia as a holiday destination has become a major part of our marketing and public relations strategy in recent times,” Mr McEvoy explained.

Late last year, Tourism Australia brought popular Indian television show 'Bade Achhe Lagte Hain' ('I Love Him a Lot') to Australia to film eight episodes shot against Sydney’s iconic backdrop, reaching an audience of 25 million Indians.

China now represents Australia's fastest growing and most valuable market for international visitors, currently worth $3.6 billion to the industry with more than 540,000 visitors in 2011, 20 per cent growth from 2010. Tourism Australia believes there is potential for this market to grow to up to $9 billion in expenditure by 2020.

The new online drama series will be broadcast in April across one of China's largest online distribution platforms, Tudou.com, as well as on Tourism Australia's YouTube page [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] for Taiwanese and Hong Kong audiences.

Show Lo's music video clips will also be distributed and broadcast via China and Asia’s major TV, music and karaoke channels around the same time his new music album is released.

ayish, hopefully rainie and show roam around city of sydney...

btw is the shirt show is wearing in the pic the ones that he wore for his japanese promo pic last year?

hehe the 2nd pic was where masterchef was held [lol wwtf. totally irrelavant]

i can't believe show and rainie were in melbourne and i knew nothing about it...

And now they're in Sydney! OMG... where are they gonna be while in town?!?

Mr. Andrew McEvoy really made a right decision in choosing Show as one of the advocates in promoting Australia as a holiday destination!!!!! I'm sure nothing can go wrong with this project, cause Show will do his best whatever it takes just like what he'd done in his promotion last few weeks in japan. I hope he will enjoy his trip there... I'm so excited seeing him act again!!! go Show!!!! you can do it!!!! Jia you!!!!

so so cool... they so match together heheh