Tasmania Takes to the Streets in Melbourne’s CBD

31 March 2009

Pedestrians in Melbourne’s busy Central Business District are being enticed to holiday in Tasmania as part of the State Government’s $2.9 million autumn tourism marketing campaign currently underway.

The Minister for Tourism, Michelle O’Byrne, said that city workers and shoppers in Collins Place would be greeted by a specially created Tasmanian promotional installation each day for five working days, as part of the Colours of Autumn campaign.

“The visually-captivating installations represent Tasmania’s five diverse regions and take a novel and interactive approach to communicating their distinctive character and features,” said Ms O’Byrne.

“The installations are another feature of Tourism Tasmania’s ongoing collaboration with the five zone marketing groups to showcase the State’s five distinctly different regions – Launceston, the Tamar and the North; the Western Wilderness; the East Coast; the North West Coast; and Hobart and Surrounds.”

Ms O’Byrne said special travel packages have been created with Escape Travel in Collins Place. The packages are tailored to each of the five regions and designed to entice Melburnians to visit Tasmania during autumn.

“Following on the footsteps of the quirky and highly successful Tasmania the movie campaign, Tourism Tasmania has adopted a new, dynamic and interactive direction toward marketing the island.

“The latest campaign – the autumn installations – is designed to actively engage potential visitors through face-to-face encounters with our island.

“Each installation allows people to see, smell, touch, hear and taste a part of Tasmania, immersing themselves momentarily in the island’s diverse offerings in genuine ways that go beyond the standard promotional stall, display or print advertisement.

“For example, the East Coast installation will feature a beach scene with a man dressed in business attire, fishing from a dinghy and shucking oysters, having ‘escaped’ his busy Melbourne life to the East Coast of Tasmania.

“Another installation, for the North West Coast, follows the region’s Meet the Maker theme, complete with farm gate stall of locally grown fruit and vegetables to be handed out to commuters.”

Ms O’Byrne said installation hosts would be positioned nearby, handing out a promotional postcard which carries Tasmanian imagery and a telephone and website call to action.

“The dynamic and busy Collins Place shopping precinct in the heart of Melbourne’s corporate business district is ideally placed to host the installations, and to put Tasmania firmly in the minds of a large number of corporate workers who are potentially thinking about their next holiday,” she said.

“This is yet another part of the State Government’s ongoing interstate tourism marketing strategy, which delivered a record number of visitors to Tasmania in 2008 and record spending of $1.48 billion.

The installations will be held from 8.30am until 6.30pm tomorrow, Thursday and Friday and again on Monday and Tuesday of next week.

Each installation will have the same backdrop with the tagline The Colours of Autumn – Now showing in Tasmania and the website address www.coloursoftasmania.com.

Note: Images from the installations will be available each day from approximately 12.00pm.

Wednesday 1 April 2009 – Launceston, Tamar and the North

Thursday 2 April 2009 – Western Wilderness

Friday 3 April 2009 – the East Coast

Monday 6 April 2009 – the North West Coast

Tuesday 7 April 2009 – Hobart and Surrounds

Further information: Rohan Wade (03) 6336 2443 0r 0417 051 255