Partnering for conversion

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Tourism Tasmania works with domestic and international trade partners on cooperative marketing campaigns to convert consideration into sales. Partners include domestic and international special interest groups, travel wholesalers, retail travel networks, carriers and inbound tour operators. We also  attend trade events with Tasmanian operators to introduce domestic and international sellers to some of Tasmania's best tourism experiences.

Cooperative marketing

Domestic

This year, Tourism Tasmania ran successful cooperative marketing campaigns with retail partners Flight Centre Travel Group (including Flight Centre and Travel Associates), Helloworld, AOT, Innkeepers Tasmania and the Royal Automobile Club of Tasmania. We also worked with TasVacations on national retail  and consumer direct campaigns through retail agencies and auto associations including the Royal Automobile Club of Queensland and the National Road and Motoring Association.

In 2015-16, Tourism Tasmania worked with:

  • TripAdvisor to manage the development of a dynamic content hub
  • Tiger Airways on a two-week tactical seat sale and Tasmanian microsite, delivered in Melbourne through social and digital channels
  • Virgin Australia and Qantas Airways on cooperative partnership activities, including the launch of Virgin Australia's direct flights from Avalon, the Long Weekender TV show and a campaign promoting an increase in Qantas Airways flights
  • TT-Line on a cooperative campaign through digital, television and cinema media
  • Australian Football League (AFL) and Virgin Australia to facilitate AFL Travel using a cross media approach that included the club and AFL channels speaking directly to the fans.
  • Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife to promote the launch of the Three Capes Track.

Tourism Tasmania integrates cooperative marketing in its brand campaigns. This year, Jetstar Airways, Virgin Australia and Qantas Airways coordinated seat sales to coincide with our two Go Behind the Scenery campaigns. In addition, our exclusive conversion partner for the campaigns, Flight Centre,  provided custom-made packages to complement the campaign stories. They also produced a booking hub to enable live bookings through the campaign microsite.

International

Over 2015-16, Tourism Tasmania committed $2.6 million to international marketing activity. This included in-market representation and cooperative activity with Tourism Australia.

In North America, we partnered with Swain Destinations, a leading provider of customised luxury vacations. As a result, their year on year sales revenue to Tasmania increased by 113 per cent. They also saw passenger bookings to Tasmania increase by 31 per cent, Tasmanian room nights increase by 61  per cent and the average passenger spend increase by 69 per cent.

Tourism Tasmania undertook a comprehensive review of the Asia markets and identified the strongest yield and growth opportunities to be in China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia.

We worked with DerTour in Germany resulting in four new Tasmanian packages and 115 bookings, equivalent to a 10 per cent increase in their sales to Tasmania. In China, Tourism Tasmania worked with leading online travel company Tuniu.com to develop Tasmanian packages and a dedicated Tasmania microsite.  The partnership resulted in over 107 million page views across the various Tuniu platforms, including its website, Weibo and WeChat. It also generated 75 online bookings and saw 234 VIP Tuniu consumers attend hosted consumer events in Shanghai.

Specialist training

Tourism Tasmania offers online training and famils for retail travel agents and inbound tour operators interested in learning more about Tasmania. Over the past year, 151 sellers qualified as Tassie Specialists with 686 sellers successfully completing the training since its introduction. Tourism Tasmania  also provided independent destination training with Infinity Holidays Flight Centre's wholesale arm in preparation for Tourism Tasmania's Go Behind the Scenery campaigns.

To encourage international sales, Tourism Tasmania worked with Tourism Australia to produce a Tasmania module in their Aussie Specialist Program. We also hosted famils for qualified Aussie Specialist agents to give them first hand experience of Tasmania.

Trade events

Tourism Tasmania presents and participates in trade events to increase sales in our domestic and international markets.

Tourism Tasmania's annual Talkabout Tassie Roadshow gives travel sellers the chance to meet local operators and learn more about Tasmanian products. This year, 17 export-ready Tasmanian businesses presented their product to around 300 travel agents in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.

Tourism Tasmania's highly successful Tassie Specialist Conference, open exclusively to qualified Tassie Specialists, attracted 79 specialist travel agents to the state. The agents engaged with 31 Tasmanian operators over the two-day conference and participated in pre and post famils managed by Tourism  Tasmania.

International trade events attended in 2015-16 included the International Tourism Bourse, Festpo and Dreamtime in Europe; National Association of Travel Agents, Travel Revolution Fair, and Malaysian Association of Travel Agents in Singapore; Travel Fair in Malaysia; and Australia Marketplace in North  America.

Tourism Tasmania also led a pan-Asia sales mission to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. A total of 11 Tasmanian tourism operators met with 153 travel trade representatives and networked with a further 58 senior managers.

Tourism Tasmania promotes Tasmanian tourism businesses at the Australian Tourism Exchange (ATE), the largest international tourism trade fair in Australia. A total of 25 Tasmanian operators, including five new sellers, attended this year's event. The ATE media program attracted over 80 international  and Australian media attendees with Tasmania hosting a full appointment schedule. Tourism Tasmania also supported familiarisations in the lead up to the exchange.

Tourism Tasmania and the Australian Tourism Export Council held TasBound 2016 for inbound tour operators (ITOs). The event brought together 39 ITOs and 40 Tasmanian tourism operators. TasBound received a 100 per cent satisfaction rate from the operators and a 94 per cent satisfaction rate from the  buyers with 94 per cent of buyers saying they will sell “much more” or “somewhat more” of Tasmania because of their attendance.

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