The Commonwealth Games 2018 are officially under way this week on the Gold Coast. This major event provides Australian wine businesses with an opportunity to grow international awareness and exports of our wines.
Tourism encourages greater wine awareness
Encouraging visitors to take advantage of the amazing experiences offered at our cellar doors and drinking our wines are important, as the tourism experience abroad brings a greater awareness of local wines when they return home – in turn, driving exports.
Cellar door research conducted by the University of South Australia and funded by Wine Australia also confirms that ‘the cellar door visit was instrumental in provoking various changes in the consumers’ wine consumption (higher quality, higher quantity, grape variety/wine type and higher prices were the most important). The strongest impact was in their consumption of the visited region’s wines (42 per cent), while their overall wine consumption (21 per cent) also changed.’
Photo: Ewen Bell / Wine Australia
Economic benefits from the Games
So how many visitors will be descending on Queensland during the Games? According to Griffith University’s The Economic Impacts of the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games report, around 675,000 visitors are expected in Queensland, 50,000 of whom will be from overseas (this includes over 6000 athletes and officials).
It is estimated that these international guests will spend anywhere between $919 and $1750 per trip, depending on where they are from. There is also the potential that they will travel to other regions as part of a longer trip to Australia. The report also notes the induced effect as the Games are expected to continue attracting visitors for several years after the Games, with flow on benefits to other major industries due to the Games and advertising campaigns as they can be a catalyst that promotes export opportunities.
Australian wine across the Commonwealth
From an export perspective, of the 70 nations and territories competing at the Games, Australian wines were delivered to 47 of those in 2017 (Export Report December 2017), totalling just under 330 million litres at a value of $765 million.
The United Kingdom took the lion’s share with 68 per cent of volume exported. This was followed by Canada (19 per cent), New Zealand (8.9 per cent), Singapore (1.8 per cent), Malaysia (1.3 per cent) and India (0.4 per cent). Even the small island nation of Niue imported 189 litres of Australian wine in the calendar year.
Source: Wine Australia
These top six countries of the Commonwealth for wine exports are also important contributors to international tourism to Australia. Data from Tourism Research Australia’s International Visitor Survey for the year ending December 2017 indicates that 1 in 5 (21 per cent) of visitors from the United Kingdom visited wineries, and this has grown 2 per cent since 2016. Around 1 in 6 Singaporeans (19 per cent), Malaysians (19 per cent), Canadians (17 per cent) and Indians (11 per cent) also included a visit to wineries during their trip. Positive growth was seen from most of these markets in 2014 and 2015.
Source: Derived by Wine Australia from Tourism Research Australia’s International Visitor Survey
Small winemakers that contributed to Wine Australia’s Small Winemaker Production and Sales Survey Report released in November 2017 noted that they see the main opportunities for the next five years being in export markets and cellar door/tourism. These businesses also highlighted that investing in cellar door tourism experiences was the fastest growing channel for wine sales in 2016–17.
The Commonwealth Games are only on Australian soil once in every 12 years or so (…well not since 2006), so putting your hat in the ring and gearing up for the top six Commonwealth markets could pay off in the marathon race to the finish line.
Good luck to all the competitors.
Top photo: Kimberley Low / Wine Australia