Tourism Talk

Issue 289 - 23 March 2010

Lumina

Lumina – A Winter of Festivals

Tourism Tasmania is making a striking new push to attract visitors to the State, with the launch of a new $3 million campaign that celebrates winter in Tasmania: Lumina – A Winter of Festivals.

Tourism Tasmania has invested $1.6million towards this extensive autumn-winter campaign, combined with the substantial contribution of $1.35million from tourism industry operators and major partners.

For the first time ever, Tourism Tasmania is bringing together more than 100 festivals and events that are happening around Tasmania during autumn and winter.

LuminaLumina – A Winter of Festivals will feature popular current and new events including the exhilarating tarmac rally Targa Tasmania, epicurean festivals Savour Tasmania and Tastings at the Top, musical extravaganzas Festival of Broadway and Festival of Voices, AFL football at Aurora Stadium and two events making their debuts in 2010, the Australian Shakespeare Festival and the Junction Arts Festival.

Lumina - Winter of Festivals will also include a range of smaller community festivals and events, with some events moving their scheduling into the winter period to leverage the excitement around the Winter of Festivals.

An exciting and innovative marketing campaign created by Tourism Tasmania will ensure that the Winter of Festivals captures the attention and imagination of event lovers and potential visitors across the country as well as here at home.

By showcasing this exciting range of events during the traditionally quiet visitor period, Tourism Tasmania is creating real drivers for visitation to Tasmania during winter – a time when we have the capacity to support more visitors to our island.Lumina

An extensive national advertising campaign that encompasses television, print and online will feature striking imagery of Lumina – A Winter of Festivals.

More than 800,000 readers in Sydney and Melbourne will receive a copy of the 20-page, full-colour Lumina calendar, packed with event details and dates, when it's distributed with Fairfax’s Good Weekend magazine on Saturday 17 April.

The Lumina calendar can be obtained through the Saturday 17 April edition of the Examiner newspaper and at participating Australia Post outlets from 20 April.

A dedicated microsite – luminatasmania – will allow visitors browse the line-up of events by date, region and genre, as well as provide them with the tools to plan and book their accommodation and travel arrangements.

Major sponsors in the campaign are the Examiner newspaper, Southern Cross Television and Australia Post.

Never before has Tourism Tasmania engaged with all levels of industry and other partners to this extent and received this level of campaign participation.

More on Lumina

Latest TVS Research Results

The latest results of the Tasmanian Visitor Survey (TVS) reports that Tasmania has received a 2% increase in total visitor numbers, with 912,100 scheduled air and sea visitors for the year to December 2009.

When combined with navy and cruise ship visitors, these results show Tasmania has once again exceeded the one million visitor mark, with 1,015,300 visitors to the State during the 12 months to December 2009.

The research also reveals that visitors are staying longer and spending more in Tasmania: total nights spent by visitors to the State soared 16% to 8.59 million nights and the average length of stay rose from 8.2 nights to 9.4 nights.

Visitor expenditure rose slightly (+1%) to $1.47 billion during the survey period and there was a marked growth in business and convention travel, up 15% and 24% respectively, helping to offset a slight decline in leisure travel (-3%).

The Tasmanian results contrast markedly with the overall national decrease of 6% in domestic travel over the same period reported by the National Visitor Survey, also released today by Tourism Research Australia.

These results are even further notable as they were achieved during a year where air capacity to the state decreased on average 4%, including a 5% fall in the December quarter alone.

But this success brings its own challenges.

We also learn from this research that while peak season demand remains incredibly strong, we need to grow our industry’s capacity to meet this demand, particularly in the areas of air access and accommodation infrastructure.

Tourism Tasmania is working to address this with new ways of diverting visitor demand to the times of year when we have greater capacity to cater for visitors.

Tourism Tasmania’s extensive Autumn-Winter 2010 Marketing Campaign is an important part of our three-year strategy to transform the way consumers think about winter in Tasmania and give them real reasons to travel here during the low and shoulder seasons.

Tourism Tasmania will also engage Tasmanians in this exciting initiative, running a comprehensive intrastate awareness campaign during autumn and winter.

See the results

Get Online - Digital Coach Program

Tourism Tasmania has engaged six experts in the field of getting your business online - people who can help you make the most of whatever online capability you have now - be it improving your website, getting clever with social media, installing or maximising an online booking system or introducing you to free online tools that will be useful to your business – just to name a few.

This coaching service is FREE, but you must OPT IN.

The service will be available from April to June to help you gain important skills and knowledge around doing business online. This will be hands on, and will be tailored to suit you and your staff, regardless of whether you know a little or a lot.

It will start with a face-to-face meeting, followed by a proram tailored to the learning needs of your business.

Some of the technology available to the travel industry can be a bit daunting (after all, we’re all new to this) but these experts are here to personally help you up-skill in this area. This is going to be more and more important to you as our visitors are already using this technology to download information online or make bookings online.

The program starts on 7 April, so talk to the Tas e-Connect Help Desk by WEDNESDAY 31 MARCH to opt in and let us know what workshop you'll be attending.

More on Digital Coach

Regional Tourism Review

Tourism Tasmania and the state’s three Regional Tourism Associations (Cradle Coast Authority, Northern Tasmania Development and Totally South) are undertaking a review to look at ways to improve how industry and government work together to grow regional tourism in Tasmania.

The review is timely in today’s competitive and challenging tourism environment. The review aims to maximise Tasmania’s competitiveness as a holiday destination by finding out how the state’s tourism industry stakeholders can work together to create effective partnerships, shared goals and clarity about roles and responsibilities.

The review will be conducted by consultants from KPMG.

Tasmania's tourism industry are encouraged to share their views on regional tourism at a series of workshops to be held after Easter in regional locations around the state. Dates, time and venues for these workshops will be announced in a future edition of Tourism Talk and via Regional Tourism Association newsletters as well as directly to key associations.

If you would like to talk to a member of the working group please don’t hesitate to contact:

Further information on the Regional Tourism Review can be found on Tourism Tasmania’s corporate website at www.tourismtasmania.com.au/news/regional_tourism_review .

The page will be updated as the review progresses.

Register Now for ATEC Symposium 2010

The Australian Tourism Export Council (ATEC) is holding its annual conference - Symposium 2010, in Hobart this year.

The Symposium is Australia’s largest inbound tourism conference, with more than 600 inbound professionals attending the four-day event.

Tourism Tasmania has designed a package of benefits available to all operators that registers to attend the conference as a delegate.

More on ATEC Symposium 2010

Zone Marketing Partnership

The North West Coast and Western Wilderness Zone Marketing Groups have partnered with Qantaslink’s Spirit of Australia inflight magazine to promote their destinations to a travel-ready business and leisure market.

The magazine is distributed aboard all QantasLink turboprop services in the eastern states network. With 41 ports in the turboprop network and around 1,900 flights per week, the magazine reaches a wide audience with features on destinations, events and business throughout the airline’s eastern states network.

Over 30 tourism businesses and the Cradle Coast Authority contributed to the magazine, with the last two editions totalling over 30 pages of editorial, compelling imagery and advertising that showcases the many experiences and products available in the zones.

This successful partnership provides real value for operators and will drive additional visitation to the zones.

See the recent edition of Spirit magazine featuring the Western Wilderness Zone at: http://www.endless-summer.com.au

Tourism Talk Fax to End

Tourism Tasmania will no longer be delivering Tourism Talk in fax format after 19 April – that's two more editions away.

With the emergence of the new communication technologies, Tourism Tasmania believes that the distribution of a fax version is no longer needed, as the vast majority of operators now have an email address.

Operators and organisations currently receiving a fax version of Tourism Talk should resubscribe on the Tourism Tasmania corporate website to receive Tourism Talk as an email newsletter.

So why not resubscribe now?

Market Briefing from Tourism Australia

Tourism Australia is holding a market briefing in Hobart on Wednesday, 14 April.

This is a great opportunity to find out about the state of our markets and to network with operators in your area.

The briefing will address issues and trends that affect international and domestic tourism: changes in consumer behaviour and expectations for the next 12 months; the latest market intelligence on Tourism Australia’s key markets; and information to assist with planning for the Australian Tourism Exchange (ATE).

The briefing will start at 9.00 am and finish at 12.30 pm.

See the Full Agenda [PDF 55KB]

Register your interest [TA website]

TigerTOUR Update

There have been no new products added to the Tourism Tasmania TigerTOUR database.

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

Coming Events

Hydro Tasmania Three Peaks Event
The ultimate endurance challenge of sailing and running in a non-stop race.
Fri, 02 Apr - Mon, 05 Apr 2010
Multiple venues
See all events

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