The Jacob’s Creek wine brand has been the focus of attention for 600 Chinese visitors to the Adelaide, the Barossa Valley and Sydney as part of Pernod Ricard’s increasing level of engagement with Australian wine. Leaving only a skeleton staff in China, the company took virtually its entire Chinese team to Australia, where they were hosted by local subsidiary Orlando Wines. Orlando’s managing director, Stephen Couche, says his team embraced the challenge of making the visit Ð which was the first outside China for many of the visitors Ð as memorable an introduction to Australia as possible.Coordinating a team involved in transport, accommodation and interpreting, with information sessions across all levels of the wine business, Orlando’s management pulled off a comprehensive experience that has developed new levels of connection between Jacob’s Creek, its people and its partners in China.According to Couche, the visit has helped cement long-term relationships and will trigger a series of cooperative ventures between the Australian and the Chinese groups. ‘Pernod Ricard will have more people working in the Chinese market, and we look forward to them visiting us again, especially with their customers’, he says.Orlando’s preparation for the visit, which was more than twice the size of their largest comparable event, involved several cultural awareness sessions for the Australian team. Importantly, all events were managed to encourage an active mixing between visitors and hosts.
