Tourism Tasmania Report JOHN FITZGERALD CEO, Tourism Tasmania
Late last month I spoke at the Tasmanian Tourism Conference in Launceston about a number of ways in which Tourism Tasmania aims to better market our state in the coming year. Under the conference theme of ‘Reimagine’, around 400 operators, industry colleagues and tourism stakeholders came together over two days to consider the kind of tourism industry we want for the future. With our state’s visitor economy performing so strongly at the moment, it was the perfect time to begin looking at how we all can reimagine our products, destinations, businesses and our marketing to set the tourism industry up for the years ahead. During the conference, the government and industry released the third T21 Visitor Economy Strategy Progress Report. It showed that we are progressing well towards our visitor economy goals and have achieved a great deal together over the past six months. You can find out more about these achievements at www.t21.net.au. However, even though so much has been achieved already, we know Reimagining Tourism Tasmania’s marketing
there is a lot more work to be done if we are to reach our goals. With the aim of connecting people culturally and emotionally to Tasmania through our domestic and international marketing programs, Tourism Tasmania is looking at how we can best achieve this over the coming years. In keeping with the conference’s ‘Reimagine’ theme, we are reimagining how we will do our best marketing in the years ahead. Of course, the extra $11 million allocated in the latest State Budget for tourism marketing is great news. It will lift our annual marketing budget to around $18 million and expand our marketing efforts. This includes reimagining our tourism brand to make sure it remains important and relevant in today’s changing world. Having a vibrant and unique destination brand presents a compelling and readily identifiable character for the state, creating cut-through in an increasingly noisy market place and ensuring consistency of message when talking to our customers through different channels and touch points. We recently commenced a Brand 2.0 project to review our tourism brand and customer segments. With the Tasmanian Government
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enquiries@tha.asn.au 03 6220 7300
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