Essentials this week... | Taste of Australia in Japan | #DestAus16 | WA Industry Briefing |Aussie Specialist Program | Consumer booking research | and more...

Frontline travel sellers in Brazil, Italy and France are now benefitting from Tourism Australia’s revised Aussie Specialist Program website which is being progressively rolled out in 11 languages across Australia’s key international inbound markets. The website will also be launched in China and Japan this week. In addition to the global website rollout, a team of Aussie Specialist Trainers have been recruited to help provide face-to-face training in key markets for frontline travel sellers.

Tourism Australia and Twitter in collaboration some of India’s key food influencers organised a live tweet session earlier this month to bring alive the best of Australia’s food stories. On 2 March 15,000 people tuned in to the Twitter Blue Room to hear from chef Sanjeev Kapoor, chef Ranveer Brar, food consultant Rushina Munshaw Ghildiyal as well as food critics Vir Sanghvi and Marryam Reshii. The famous Indian foodies interacted with enthusiasts via #TweetWhatYouEat and #TasteOfAus sharing live broadcasts, photos, periscopes and Twitter chats. The collaboration resulted in over 3,400 tweets and reached over 1.5 million consumers.

Registration is open for Australian tourism businesses to attend Tourism Australia’s latest free-of-charge half day industry briefing to be held at Crown Perth, Western Australia on Wednesday 6 April 2016. The briefing will run from 2-4pm and will provide an opportunity to hear about Tourism Australia’s plans and meet members of the senior executive leadership team. Also hear the latest updates from the Australian Tourism Export Council and Tourism Western Australia.

Digital agency Fuel has compiled the Leisure Travel Planning Study, its annual research on how leisure travellers are researching and booking hotels. According to the study, consumers are visiting an average of 4.6 unique sites prior to booking, spending an average of 26 days researching hotels. When it comes to making the decision, consumers say reviews on the hotel site, pictures on the hotel website and quality of the hotel website are the most influential. For more research and trends related to international and domestic tourism and travel, visit the Insight Files.