Managing Director of the Australian Tourist Commission, John Morse, talks about tourism marketing and promotion in AustraliaÆs most important year.

The International Olympic Committee has declared that the ATCÆs Olympics Strategy will be a role model for future host countries of the Olympic Games.

This year, in just a few months time, Australia will host the biggest international event of all, the 2000 Olympic Games – the biggest peacetime event in the world. Some aspect of Australia will be seen on television by around four billion people.

The 2000 Olympics will change the way the world sees Australia forever. The 2000 Olympic Games will accelerate that learning by a decade. Because when the media covers the big events, they just donÆt cover the sport. They use it as an opportunity to focus on a country.

The ATC has put in place an ambitious program to make the most of the tourism opportunity presented by the Olympics. It doesnÆt just focus on the 17 days of the Games – it takes a decade long approach to the benefit which began when Sydney was awarded the Olympics way back in September 1993.

Importantly, the Australian tourism industry sees the actual staging of the Olympics as the beginning rather than the end of the opportunity presented by the Games.

As the National Tourism Organisation, the ATC will keep the momentum going by focussing more of the lucrative meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions business.

The country will use its Olympics experience to make the most of the 2001 Goodwill Games in Brisbane, the 2002 Gay Games in Sydney, the 2003 Rugby World Cup in a number of cities and the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne.

The Olympics will give Australia a permanent seat on the world stage. It is the big events that will keep the country in the forefront of the worldÆs mind in the first decade of the new century.