Tourism Australia Managing Director Andrew McEvoy has resigned from his position and will finish with the organisation at the end of the year.

Mr McEvoy will take up the role as Managing Director Fairfax Events in January.
Tourism Australia Chairman Geoff Dixon congratulated Mr McEvoy on his new role and commended him and the organisation on what had been a highly successful four years.

“Andrew has been an outstanding CEO for Tourism Australia, greatly strengthening the organisation both strategically and operationally, and putting in place a strong and committed management team,” Mr Dixon said.

“His success over the past years was underlined just last week when Tourism Australia was named Best Destination Marketing Campaign at the World Routes Awards 2013. This is the first time a tourism authority has won the top award for its efforts in air service development and airline marketing.”

Mr Dixon said achievements in Mr McEvoy’s time as head of Tourism Australia had included the development of the Tourism 2020 plan as a blueprint for the nation’s visitor economy; the establishment of There’s Nothing Like Australia as a multiple award winning campaign for Australia; a strengthening of Australia’s tourism marketing efforts into Asia; and the massive growth of Australia’s social media assets including Facebook, Google+, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and Weibo.

“The Australian visitor economy has had three successive years of growth in numbers, nights and spend, achieving its best growth performance since the Olympic year of 2000,” Mr Dixon said. “The domestic visitor economy has also seen two years of strong growth, putting Australia on track to achieve its 2020 targets.”

The team had also been responsible for the highly successful Oprah Winfrey visit; the reprise of the Best Jobs in the World campaign and the recent development of the Restaurant Australia, positioning to tap into the world’s desire for great food and wine as part of their travel experience.

Mr Dixon said Tourism Australia would immediately commence an extensive search to find a replacement for Mr McEvoy.