Tourism Australia has put its media account out to tender.
The tender, seeking one or more "high-performing" agencies, is part of a statutory review.
The account is currently held by Mediabrands Australia's UM which won it from OMD in 2016 during the last review. This runs out at the end of August 2021.
"Tourism Australia’s overall vision is to make Australia the most desirable and memorable destination on earth. Our purpose is to invite the world to experience the Australian way of life," says the tender.
The marketing strategy "relies heavily on both strategic creative thinking and creative media thinking".
In the October federal budget, Tourism Australia was allocated $231.6 million to encourage Australians to travel at home and to remind international travellers to keep Australian on their bucket list.
Tourism Australia is looking for media planning, buying and reporting and ancillary services across a range of international markets and within Australia and New Zealand.
It is also wants services for search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine optimisation (SEO) in the Chinese market. This is currently provided by Gridsum Technologies.
While it has a preference for a single provider, it is open to working with multiple agencies that fulfil either or both of the requirements specified above.
"Tourism Australia’s overarching aim is to select the right partner, or partners, within the right operating model, to deliver those services," according to the tender.
"Tourism Australia’s media focused partners have been and will continue to be crucial in underpinning its communication program across the world, including in response to the global COVID-19 pandemic, in the domestic Australian market."
Tenderers are expected to present a detailed global media strategy, including recommendations, in December.
This would include media strategies for both the China and UK markets.
Tourism Australia wants a proposed communications architecture for each market.
The appointment is for five years, made up of an initial three years (September 2021 to August 2024), with two one-year extensions.
The tender closes December 3 at 3pm.
AdNews has approached Tourism Australia and UM for comment.
Tourism Australia appointed M&C Saatchi as its creative agency and Digitas as its digital agency at the end of 2018.
M&C Saatchi beat incumbent Clemenger Sydney in the PwC-run pitch, as well as DDB Sydney, BMF, Droga5 and Publicis Communications.
Clemenger Sydney took the account from DDB in 2013 with Tourism Australia also appointing DT (now AKQA), to handle its digital account at the time.
Publicis agency Digitas replaced AKQA which defended the account in the digital pitch process.
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