Tourism Talk – Industry Newsletter

Tas E-Connect to Go Back on the Road

Significant progress has been made since Tourism Tasmania launched its Tas e-Connect initiative on 16 March, with almost 500 tourism operators participating in the 10 state wide briefings. The briefings highlighted to operators the benefits of being distributed and bookable online.

The briefings were led by Tourism Tasmania CEO, Felicia Mariani, and included presentations on the open booking exchange and the learning and development opportunities offered by the Tas e-Connect initiative. The presentations were followed by a one-hour question and answer session – with the insightful and interesting questions raised compiled into a Frequently Asked Questions [PDF 190KB] now available online or from the Tas e-Connect Help Desk on 1300 303 259.

The second round of Tas e-Connect industry briefings will commence on 20 April and all Tasmanian tourism operators and industry members are encouraged to attend. These briefings will include a presentation on Discovertasmania.com and the range of distribution opportunities on offer. As before, there will be a dedicated question and answer session.

Tourism operators will receive an invitation to the briefings this week and the full schedule will be available on the Tas e-Connect pages of the Tourism Tasmania website.

For more information on Tas e-Connect and the upcoming briefings, or any of the other programs available to help you get your business online, call our Tas e-Connect Help Desk between 9.00am and 6.00pm Monday to Friday on 1300 303 259 or email taseconnect@tourismtasmania.com.au.

Team Tasmania Revamped

Tourism Tasmania is revamping its Team Tasmania Program. An informal Team Tasmania membership program has so far enabled Tasmanian ‘export ready’ operators to work with Tourism Tasmania on a variety of marketing and development opportunities in an international context. However, in recognition of the challenging global environment and the changing distribution and consumer environment, the Team Tasmania program needs to evolve.

The new program will increasingly focus on providing the advice, training, support and opportunities that Tasmania’s tourism industry will need in order to work in international markets in the future.

The new Team Tasmania will focus on business development; access to international markets; marketing opportunities and communication, feedback and networking.

Membership of the program is invited from businesses demonstrating their commitment to international markets through their participation in international travel trade events, membership of the Australian Tourism Export Council (ATEC) and participation in independent and Tourism Tasmania led Sales Missions in-market and to Australian based travel trade.

Members should also have provision of online bookable inventory to the travel trade, or working toward this and are expected to demonstrate an active engagement with Tourism Tasmania via formal events and communications.

There is no cost to be a member of Team Tasmania, apart from those costs associated with participation in membership activities.

For further information on membership requirements and the application process see the Team Tasmania webpage on the Tourism Tasmania website.

Applications close on 30 April 2009.

Tasmania Takes To The Streets Of Melbourne

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.

Pedestrians in Melbourne’s busy Central Business District are being enticed to holiday in Tasmania as part of Tourism Tasmania's $2.9 million autumn marketing campaign. Shoppers in Collins Place have, each day since last Wednesday, been greeted by a specially created Tasmanian promotional installation.

The visually-captivating installations represent Tasmania’s five diverse regions and take a novel and interactive approach to communicating their distinctive character and features.

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. Installation hosts, positioned nearby, hand out a promotional postcard carrying Tasmanian imagery and a telephone and website call to action.

To support the call to action, special travel packages, tailored to each of the five regions and designed to entice Melburnians to visit Tasmania during autumn, are available through Escape Travel, also located in Collins Place.

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 and shoppers who are potentially thinking about their next holiday.

The installations are another feature of Tourism Tasmania’s ongoing collaboration with Tasmania’s five zone marketing groups.

Operators interested in taking advantage of the many other cooperative marketing opportunities still available through the autumn campaign should visit Tourism Tasmania's Marketing Together website.

Discover Tasmania TV Series Marketing Opportunities

The second series of Discover Tasmania will commence on Southern Cross on Thursday 23 April at 7.30pm.

During this time, Tourism Tasmania will launch a micro site on our Discovertasmania.com website, dedicated to promoting and providing information on the TV series. The series episodes will also be repeated weekly on southern Cross at 5.30pm on Saturday afternoon.

Opportunities to advertise around the show through television, print, radio and online on discovertasmania.com will soon be available on our Marketing Together website.

Web strategy - What’s the Cost?

Do you know how much it costs to create a great online marketing strategy?

It’s not always easy to work out the cost of a strategic web approach. A lot depends on the website’s requirements, the level of search engine optimisation and marketing.

It also depends on how much of your time you’re ready to invest and how much professional assistance you’ll need.

To find out more about the costs of implementing an online strategy take a look at the tutorial Web Strategy: Cost and Timings [PDF 293KB], in the Tourism e-Kit.

The Tourism e-kit is a tourism-specific online marketing resource that helps operators benefit from online marketing opportunities in order to remain competitive. It contains up to date information on e-marketing, search engine optimisation, website strategy and much more.

The Tourism e-kit can be downloaded free of charge as separate tutorials or as an entire document.

For more information contact:

TigerTOUR Update

Recent additions to the Tiger Tour database.

Accommodation

  • Blueberry B & B, Heybridge.
  • Westeria Cottage, Ellendale.
  • Blenheim, Evandale.

Tourism Tasmania’s Product Consultants can assist you to update your business details, email: TigerTOUR@tourism.tas.gov.au or phone: (03) 6230 8229.

To view files marked PDF you need Acrobat Reader version 6 or above, available as a free download.


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