If you want proof that Australia understands the business of spectacle, look no further than Albert Park on Grand Prix weekend.
Melbourne’s leafy inner-city circuit once again delivered a motorsport carnival of epic proportions as Formula One launched its season before a roaring crowd of 483,934 spectators. By Saturday night, the city was humming, hotel occupancy nudging 93 per cent, restaurants packed, taxis scarce, and Melbourne’s tourism economy doing what it does best, cash registers ringing like church bells on Sunday morning.
Major events have always been good business for Australia. But in 2026, they represent something even bigger: the frontline of the experience economy.
Sport, after all, has become one of the country’s most powerful global calling cards. The Australian Grand Prix, the Australian Open, and a long list of festivals and cultural events are now recognised pillars of the national tourism strategy under THRIVE 2030.
And if the crowds in Melbourne are anything to go by, the appetite isn’t slowing down.
Yet beneath the roar of engines lies a quieter transformation that will define how visitors judge these experiences in the years ahead.
Technology.
More specifically, how intelligently the tourism industry uses AI and voice technology to keep the whole show running smoothly.
Sport sells Australia, but expectations have changed
For decades, Australia’s tourism pitch has been straightforward: wide open spaces, iconic landmarks, and world-class sporting events.
Those ingredients still work.
Nicholas Kontopoulos, VP Marketing, Asia Pacific & Japan at Twilio
But the modern traveller compares experiences differently now.
Today’s visitor isn’t comparing this year’s Grand Prix with last year’s race. They’re comparing it with the last brilliant event they attended anywhere in the world, a football final in London, a music festival in Singapore, or a tennis tournament in New York.
If the digital side of the experience feels clunky, ticketing glitches, confusing communication, endless queues for information, the glow fades quickly.
Nicholas Kontopoulos, Vice President of Marketing for Asia Pacific and Japan at Twilio, says the lesson for tourism operators is simple.
“Sport is undoubtedly one of Australia’s strongest international brand assets,” he says.
Events like the Grand Prix and the Australian Open generate hundreds of millions in visitor spending and support thousands of tourism and hospitality jobs.
But keeping those visitors happy now requires more than good seats and cold drinks.
With the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games approaching, the industry must think more deeply about the infrastructure that powers modern visitor experiences, not just stadiums and rail lines, but also the digital systems that support them.
The overlooked secret of great tourism
There’s an old truth in hospitality: if the staff are stressed, the guest experience suffers.
Kontopoulos puts it bluntly.
“I’ve always believed that you can’t have a great customer experience without a great employee experience.”
It’s a sentiment anyone working the front desk of a busy hotel will understand.
Tourism demand is climbing sharply, but staffing remains a headache across the sector.
Recent Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) figures show tourism employment up 4.6 per cent year-on-year. That sounds positive until you realise many roles remain stubbornly difficult to fill.
Data from Jobs and Skills Australia confirms the same story across hospitality and tourism: demand is rising, and the workforce is stretched.
When staffing levels can’t keep up, the cracks show quickly.
Queues grow longer. Phone lines get jammed. Service slows down.
And when visitors feel those delays, the entire experience suffers.
AI isn’t replacing people, it’s rescuing them
Artificial intelligence has generated no shortage of headlines recently, usually accompanied by dramatic predictions that machines will take over jobs.
Kontopoulos takes a far calmer view.
“There’s a lot of noise about AI right now,” he says. “Some people see it as a way to replace humans, but I see it as a way to make us more human.”
The numbers back him up.
Twilio research shows 49 per cent of Australians still want to speak with a real person when an issue becomes complicated.
Technology, in other words, should remove friction, not remove people.
Picture a support agent during the peak of Grand Prix weekend.
A customer calls about a ticket. The agent opens one system to check the booking, another to confirm payment, and another to verify seat allocation.
Five screens later, everyone is exhausted.
Modern AI-driven contact platforms solve that problem by bringing everything into a single view.
Visitors can ask questions through SMS, WhatsApp, email or voice, even if they’ve just landed in Australia and haven’t bought a local SIM card yet.
Meanwhile, staff see the full context instantly.
The result is faster service and a far calmer workforce.
Technology quietly handles the chaos
Major events generate enormous spikes in demand.
Thousands of people want answers at the same time: where to enter, how to access tickets, and what transport options exist.
That’s where AI tools quietly shine.
Chatbots and automated self-service platforms can handle routine questions instantly, 24 hours a day, leaving human staff free to focus on complex cases.
Behind the scenes, AI “copilots” also assist employees by summarising conversations, routing enquiries intelligently, and reducing the dreaded repeat call.
The benefit is simple but powerful.
Staff feel less overwhelmed. Visitors get answers faster.
Everyone wins.
The global playbook is already evolving
International entertainment giants are already moving in this direction.
AEG, one of the world’s largest sports and live entertainment companies, uses the Twilio platform across venues, including Crypto.com Arena, the LA Kings, and its ticketing operation AXS.
The idea is to create a seamless communication experience stretching from ticket purchase to the moment the fan leaves the venue.
Using unified customer data, AEG can understand what Kontopoulos describes as “the customer behind the seat.”
That insight allows teams to tailor messages, promotions and services far more precisely.
For Australia’s tourism industry, the lesson is obvious.
The country’s calendar from the Grand Prix to the Australian Open and beyond offers enormous opportunities to deploy similar technology.
Protecting Australia’s reputation as a premium destination
Australia has always traded on its reputation for memorable experiences.
But reputation is fragile.
If the industry wants to stay competitive, it must exceed expectations, not merely meet them.
“If Australia wants to retain its status as a premier destination, we can’t just meet expectations,” Kontopoulos says. “We have to blow them out of the water.”
That means delivering seamless customer service from the moment travellers book flights until they return home.
Digital tools will increasingly help tourism organisations collect feedback, understand visitor preferences, and personalise experiences using first-party data.
The result?
Visitors stay longer.
They spend more.
And most importantly, they tell their friends.
The race toward Brisbane 2032
Australia’s tourism sector now finds itself at the start of a long and fascinating race.
Demand for travel is surging globally. Major events are drawing record crowds. And the countdown to Brisbane 2032 has already begun.
If Melbourne’s Grand Prix weekend revealed anything, it’s this:
The future of tourism will not be decided solely by stadiums or infrastructure.
It will be decided by how seamlessly technology and hospitality work together to create unforgettable experiences.
Because in the experience economy, the best technology is the kind visitors barely notice.
It simply works.
And when it does, the whole country wins.
by Sandra Jones – (c) 2026.
Read Time: 5 minutes.
About the Writer.
Sandra has spent a working lifetime quietly rescuing journeys, one itinerary, one anxious caller, one impossible connection at a time. Years in Australia’s finest travel agencies taught her the art of calm, how to find a flight in a fog of cancellations, how to soothe a traveller when luggage wanders, how to turn nine frantic days in Europe into something resembling sense. Qualified, seasoned, endlessly patient, she learned that good travel advice is part logistics, part listening.
But the storyteller in her was always waiting its turn. Writing offered a new map, a way to turn experience into reflection, detail into delight. At Global Travel Media, Sandra now writes the truths only insiders know: the mishaps, the laughter, the grace found between gates and goodbyes. She reminds us that travel, for all its fuss, is still one of life’s better ideas.
