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Australia Tourist Commission organises ‘fam tour’ for agents
MUMBAI: Good news for TV production executives who are looking for great locales down under. More than 100 leading travel agents from Asia will be heading to Australia this week as part of the recovery campaign to rebuild travel to Australia from the Asia region.
The Aussie Specialist Programme has been designed by the Australian Tourist Commission to provide retail travel agents with the knowledge and expertise to sell Australia.
These new Aussie Specialists will participate in the Australia familiarisation from 27 July to 2 August.
Australian Tourist Commission (ATC) Managing Director Ken Boundy has been quoted as saying that travel agents play an important role in selling a holiday destination. A release says that Aussie Specialist travel agents from India, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand will expand their knowledge of the Australian tourism experience.
“Over the next week, the agents will travel to six states and nine cities and regional centres to experience first-hand the diverse range of travel experiences Australia has to offer,” Boundy said while adding that “the tourist dollar is currently fierce and such familiarisations will help to strengthen Australia’s position in the global travel market.”
A press release says that travel agents will spend seven days in Australia visiting a combination of two destinations including Adelaide, Brisbane, Sunshine Coast, Cairns, Gold Coast, Melbourne, Perth, Sydney and Tasmania.
Boundy says that while many of Australia’s key tourist markets in Asia have experienced a severe drop in business in recent months, over the past couple of weeks business has begun to pick-up with consumer confidence improving.
“Singapore, India, Malaysia and Thailand deliver more than half a million visitors to Australia each year,” Boundy said. “In the five months to May arrivals from most markets in Asia have fallen, including India (down by 18 per cent), Malaysia (down 23 per cent), Singapore (down 22 per cent) and Thailand (down 19 per cent).
“Singapore is a mature market for Australia with high repeat visitation – up to 70 per cent – and we need to give visitors in this market new reasons to visit Australia. At the same time markets such as India and Malaysia have seen steady increases over the past decade and we need to ensure this upward trend continues,” Boundy says while talking about India as a market.
Boundy also states: “Activities such as our current recovery campaigns, which total $33.2 million and span more than 10 countries, including a number of countries across the Asia region, and familiarisations for the trade will assist us in reversing declines in tourist numbers.”
All participants on the fam trip should have completed the Aussie Specialist agents training programme. The three-part programme includes general destination information on Australia as well as specific information on the states and territories; product experiences relevant to various segments, and itinerary planning.
Agents who complete all three components of the Aussie Specialist training are listed on the ATC’s consumer website www.australia.com and act as point of referral for enquiries on holidays to Australia in their respective countries.
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Madison World to launch AI platform M BrAIn for media planning
Agency group invests about $1 million as it shifts to AI driven growth planning.
MUMBAI: If media planning once ran on spreadsheets and gut instinct, the next chapter may run on algorithms and curiosity. Madison World is preparing to roll out the first version of its proprietary artificial intelligence platform Madison M BrAIn in early April, as the independent agency group accelerates its transition toward AI driven planning and product led media services.
The platform, expected to involve an investment of around $1 million, is designed to reshape how the agency approaches strategy by combining internal knowledge, external data sources and advanced AI models into a single intelligence ecosystem.
According to Madison Media, OOH and Hiveminds partner and group CEO Ajit Varghese the initiative forms part of a larger structural rethink within the organisation. “Traditionally agencies built frameworks around media planning and allocation. We are redesigning that structure into what we call a Growth Planning System (GPS),” Varghese said.
The shift reflects a growing belief that effective media strategy must begin earlier in the decision making process. Instead of jumping directly to channel allocation, planners must first decode the market itself identifying consumer barriers, purchase triggers and the core challenges facing a brand.
Once those insights are mapped, agencies can build clearer growth agendas for clients and design media strategies that connect more closely with business outcomes.
To support that approach, Madison has built Madison M BrAIn as what it describes as a human AI cognitive ecosystem. Acting as a central intelligence hub, the platform aggregates proprietary insights alongside external data sources and large language models, enabling planners to access deeper market intelligence before building campaign strategies.
Varghese said one of the core objectives is to democratise knowledge across the organisation. “In the past, this level of understanding was largely available to senior leaders or experienced strategists. With Madison M BrAIn, even a junior planner should be able to access the same intelligence and approach clients with a far more informed perspective,” he said.
The agency has already implemented the new planning philosophy internally and completed three months of testing for the AI platform, with early trials showing encouraging results in terms of learning capability and system performance.
While the first version relied on global large language models, Madison is now developing its own proprietary Small Language Model (SLM) to serve as the core of the M BrAIn ecosystem.
“The SLM will be able to read global LLMs, but the LLMs cannot read the SLM,” Varghese explained. “That ensures all the intelligence we build remains within the Madison ecosystem and strengthens our proprietary knowledge base.”
The first version of Madison M BrAIn is expected to go live in early April, with a more refined version targeted by the end of June. Over time, the platform will integrate additional external data streams and APIs including consumer insight platforms, social listening tools and client datasets.
These integrations are expected to enhance the system’s learning capability and enable it to generate increasingly sophisticated strategic recommendations.
Although the platform is currently being deployed for internal use, Madison sees potential for it to evolve into a licensable product in the future.
“At the moment, our focus is to stabilise and strengthen M BrAIn internally. But over time there is potential for this to become a product that could be licensed externally,” Varghese said.
The AI platform is also part of a wider technology transformation underway at the agency group. Alongside M BrAIn, Madison is building a broader digital infrastructure called the Catalyst operating system, which aims to integrate operational processes, data and product platforms into a unified ecosystem.
This broader technology stack could require an additional $1 million to $1.5 million investment over time, though spending will be phased and reviewed regularly.
“We are evaluating progress every three months and prioritising the most critical capabilities first,” Varghese said.
Madison expects the full AI and operating ecosystem to be fully functional within 12 to 18 months, positioning the agency to combine human strategy with machine intelligence as the advertising industry enters its next data driven phase.
