DC sees record Aussie visitors

A DELEGATION from Destination DC recently touched down in Australia to commence a mission to raise the profile of the US city and leverage a record 90,000 Aussie visitors notched last year.

The destination posted an impressive 11.1% growth in Aussie visitation in 2017 when compared to the previous year, a result that Destination DC’s president and ceo Elliott Ferguson attributes to diversifying the travel perception of the city.

“The traditional reasons people travel to DC are for things like monuments, museums, The White House, The Capitol Building and although those things are positive, they can also be negative in terms of the perception of DC as being a fun and diverse city,” Ferguson said.

“So part of what we do is counter those perceptions by letting people know how diverse the city is, how accessible it is to places like New York, and let Aussie visitors know to diversify their visits because there is so much to do in terms of sporting events, the retail scene, the food and beverage scene - we are the fourth city in North America in the Michelin Guide.”

Supporting this perception drive will be a new advertising campaign launching in 2019 called “Discover the Real DC”.

A range of new attractions are set to open next year which are expected to bolster visitor numbers including an expanded John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts opening 07 Sep 2019, and the reopening of Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History’s “Fossil Hall” in Jun 2019.

There are also 21 hotels in the pipeline to handle the upswing, adding 4,764 rooms, including the Eaton Workshop opening this month and the Moxy Washington, DC Downtown, opening in Oct.

Pictured: Theresa Belpulsi, vice president tourism & visitor services; Elliott Ferguson, president & ceo; Vanessa Casas, international media relations manager; and Letizia Sirtori, associate director tourism sales.