ARTICLE JOHN FITZGERALD
I’d like to begin this month’s update by congratulating all THA members who entered the Tasmanian Tourism Awards and to those of you who were successful in taking out an award. The awards gala is always a fantastic event and a great way to not only recognise the state’s outstanding operators but also celebrate the year’s achievements with industry colleagues. This year’s winners are especially privileged to be representing the state as finalists in the much anticipated 2018 Qantas Australian Tourism Awards being held at the Cataract Gorge in Launceston next year. Our representation is shaping up to be incredibly strong and we’ll certainly be putting our best foot forward to the nation when our colleagues from across the country visit in March. It’s been yet another busy year for Tourism Tasmania with the team just wrapping up the last of our industry information sessions for the year which involved eight sessions around the state. A big thank you to industry who supported us in this initiative through making the time to attend. All up, we met and spoke with over 300 operators and stakeholders. We provided an update on the two new audience segments we will be targeting with our marketing campaigns, our brand work and our upcoming campaign that will launch from the end of the year. We also hit the road with colleagues from the regional tourism organisations and the Tourism Hospitality Supply Unit of the Department of State Growth who were able to provide updates on their existing and upcoming activities. This collaboration was important because we acknowledge that often it’s not easy to understand who’s who in government when it comes to responsibility over specific elements of our visitor economy. Having everyone in the room meant we could provide some more insight on that for those of you working at the coal face. There will be more of these sessions in 2019, so subscribe to our Tourism Talk newsletter to make sure you get news and updates from us. For those of you who attended our information sessions, you would have heard a little more detail about our new campaign due to launch very soon. In December 2019, the Sydney to Hobart yacht race will be celebrating its 75th year and Tourism Tasmania has been inspired by the very Tasmanian tale of the ‘Quiet Little Drink’ (I’m hoping many of you will know the history of this!) to kick off a new advocacy campaign called ‘a quiet little… (insert moment)’ #TassieStyle. All will become much clearer about how you can become involved when we kick off later this year, but essentially it will be an easy mechanism for you to share your own quiet little moments with the world. For example, you could share your image of your quiet little meal with thousands of your new friends at Taste of Tasmania – A quiet little meal with friends #tassiestyle- or a quiet little moment in a cosy café nook – a quiet little moment #tassiestyle. You will see more examples of quiet little moments popping up over summer that have a uniquely Tassie style and flavour. Hopefully you will join in the fun and share some of your quiet little moments on Instagram and Facebook. It is a great way to generate advocacy
for your business and entice visitors too. Don’t forget to also tag #TassieStyle and #DiscoverTasmania when you share your moment. Finally, I also have some pleasing visitor data to share with you from the year ending June 2018. Tasmania has welcomed a record number of international visitors with 307,000 visitors, which is up 21 per cent from the previous year. This is especially notable considering that the national average growth rate was 6 per cent, making Tasmania the highest rate of international growth for all Australian states/ territories. And for the first time, we have seen expenditure reach $2.4 billion in a 12 month period which is up 6 per cent from the previous year. The average spend per night is up 5 per cent and we have seen growth in visitor numbers across all regions. Not only do we have Christmas and New Year just around the corner, there’s only a few weeks to go until Mona Foma in Launceston. The festival‘s move to Launceston every year until 2021 presents a multitude of opportunities for the north of the state and also provides Tourism Tasmania with further opportunities to market the region to interstate visitors - so we are really looking forward to what the future holds. I’d like to sign off by thanking you for all your hard work in supporting the visitor economy in 2018. The Tourism Tasmania board, team and I wish you a wonderful Christmas and a successful season ahead.
December 2018 www.tha.asn.au
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