Australia may be banking on attracting British tourists weary of Brexit with a playful new advertising campaign featuring pop singer Kylie Minogue, but experts say the lucrative Chinese market remains the one to watch for its massive untapped potential.

Tourism Australia launched the US$15 million campaign featuring the singer ahead of the Queen’s speech on Christmas Day, calling on Australia’s “besties across the ocean” to take a trip Down Under and forget about Britain’s fraught negotiations to exit the European Union.

British visitors to Australia fell 4 percent to 714,000 arrivals over the 12-month period ending in October as consumer confidence took a plunge amid uncertainty surrounding Brexit.

By comparison, about 1.4 million Chinese tourists visited Australia in the year up to July, making China by far the biggest market in terms of both arrivals and money spent – although arrivals slowed from double-digit growth to a rise of just 0.3 percent amid the fallout of the US-China trade war and a slowing Chinese economy.

Tourism Australia is expected to launch an ad campaign specifically tailored for China, one of 15 “key” markets, at an unspecified date.

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