Walking through the Fagus, Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park
Emilie Ristevski
Essential business tools
We bring together business planning and operational resources from organisations such as Business Tasmania and Tourism Industry Council Tasmania, to help you strengthen and grow your tourism business.
There's information available to support you in setting up and running a successful tourism business. We've curated a selection of practical tools, templates and resources across key areas such as business planning, marketing, digital readiness, online bookings and risk management, to make it easier to find what you need.
Business Planning
The Business Australia website features a range of resources for business planning, including creating a business plan, accounting and finance, marketing, business growth, HR and risk management.
Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park
Tourism Tasmania and Jason Charles Hill
Marketing
Our marketing team provides resources to help tourism operators develop a marketing strategy for their business and align their marketing activity with key target markets and our annual Off Season campaign.
Digital marketing refers to marketing activity undertaken via the internet and online channels such as websites, email and social media. The resources on this page are designed to help you learn more about digital marketing and develop a digital strategy.
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Cape Wickham Lighthouse, King Island
Emilie Ristevski
Images
High quality images are important content for inclusion across all marketing channels. They sell a tourism business to potential customers by creating a strong first impression that evokes emotions and inspires potential visitors to book.
Strong visuals showcase the unique experience on offer, helping customers to imagine themselves there. Professional images also build credibility, enhance marketing materials and perform better online to increase engagement and conversion rates.
Tourism Tasmania, Brand Tasmania and Tourism Australia each offer image libraries filled with professional Tasmanian imagery that tourism operators can access for free by registering an account. These image libraries are especially useful for new and emerging tourism operators who may not yet have built their own image gallery.
Insurance and risk management
Taking out adequate insurance is a first step to opening a new tourism venture. Contact the Tourism Industry Council Tasmania and Hospitality Tasmania for information on insurance for tourism and hospitality businesses.
The Australian Tourism Industry Council (ATIC) Quality Tourism Framework includes risk management planning as part of the accreditation program administered throughout Tasmania by Tourism Industry Council Tasmania. This is a good starting point when considering risk management for a tourism operation.
Worksafe Tasmania also offers guidelines on workplace health and safety obligations for tourism businesses operating in the state.
Digital
Business Tasmania offers guidance on setting up your digital strategy, including an easy to use digital strategy template.
Google Business Profile: Formerly Google my Business, Google Business Profile allows business owners to create a free profile to easily create a first impression and connect with potential customers using Google.
Google Analytics: Using Google Analytics to understand how visitors are using your business website, including which pages they are viewing, how long they are spending on each page and where they came from, helps you understand your audience to further tweak content and marketing strategies.
Regional tech hub helps navigate often confusing phone and internet options and technical issues.
Online booking software
There are many online booking software options available for tourism businesses, depending on your needs. The following are some of the options used by Tasmanian tourism operators. This is not an exhaustive list and not a recommendation for the software system or provider.
Customer feedback and reputation management
Effective reputation management is important for building trust and attracting more visitors. Customer feedback forms an integral part of reputation management, with positive reviews and word of mouth referrals significantly influencing potential customers' decisions and helping to improve tourism offerings.
There are many ways to monitor customer feedback and manage your reputation.
As part of the suite of accreditation benefits, accredited tourism operators gain free access to Reviewpro, which captures and analyses online customer feedback and ratings from 135+ websites. ReviewPro scans these websites for any comments and online ratings made about your tourism product and provides you with a simple desktop solution to review, manage and respond to positive or negative comments about your business. Contact TICT for more information.
The following could also be considered as part of your reputation management strategy.
Customer surveys provide good insight into how well your business is meeting the needs of your customers. Monitoring and responding to online reviews on platforms such as Google, Facebook, Booking.com and TripAdvisor helps you gauge feedback and address any issues in a public format. Direct conversations with your customers are another way to seek feedback; embed this into your business's customer service policy so all staff know to note any feedback. You could also implement a contact form, survey or chatbot on your website for visitor input.
Road signage
All tourism operators applying for road signage must hold current business accreditation with the Tourism Industry Council Tasmania and have a current profile on ATDW.
Road signage is lodged with local councils or Department of State Growth, depending on if signage is to be placed alongside a local road or state owned road. You can find out more here.