Session

Presentation at Zenyasai by Derek Baines, Regional General Manager - Japan and Korea, Tourism Australia

International tourism marketing demands highly integrated, multilingual communications across consumers, media and industry stakeholders. Operating in sixteen global markets – including ten where English is not the primary language – Tourism Australia is tasked with driving destination awareness and collaborating with trade partners to convert travel demand.

This presentation will examine how Tourism Australia navigates these linguistic and cultural complexities. The organisation’s strategy is developed with input from regional offices, including global consumer research. Some campaigns are created centrally and “transcreated” for overseas markets, while others are locally devised initiatives “transcreated” back to English for head office approval. These dual pathways generate extensive requirements for high-quality language services across content creation, meetings and events.

Using practical examples from campaigns in Japan and other parts of Asia, this session will explore how Tourism Australia leverages both human expertise and AI interfaces in its language workflows. It highlights the evolving role of language professionals in international tourism marketing, the unique challenges faced, and the strategic opportunities unlocked when best practice is employed.