currently looking at the broader state brand, we also have the opportunity to make sure our tourism brand fits nicely under Tassie’s overall brand umbrella. We are also reimagining our domestic market segments. We recently completed a domestic market segmentation study to review our current target audience and see if there was potential to expand our future pool of customers in a targeted way. The new study explored groups of travellers according to their travel and emotive needs, identified the emotional needs that a destination like Tasmania best fulfilled, and tested our ‘right to play’ amongst the various groups. This is exciting work and we plan to develop a target audience profile for Tasmania from this. We still need to do a bit more work on it and hope to start sharing more information about our new customer segments later this year. We are reimagining our international marketing approach, to make sure we concentrate our efforts in the source markets that will provide the best international tourism growth for Tasmania. Our recent review has confirmed that our current Asian, European and North American market priorities are still the most relevant. However it also identified new ways for us to operate in these markets. More information about this approach will be published later this month and will include the already known decision to recruit in-country representatives in Hong Kong, China, Singapore, Germany and the USA. And we are also reimagining the relationship we have with our customers. With around 70 per cent of Tasmanian visitors being repeat visitors, we have a great opportunity to build a more enduring relationship and enhance our understanding of them, through the use of
sophisticated digital technology. The aim is to be able to customise our engagement with every visitor, based on their behaviours, interests and travel preferences. We are currently developing a digital transformation project to achieve this and hope to be trialling it in 2017-18. We are also making plans in other areas of our marketing including the content we produce and the channels we use to deliver it; the partnerships we will cultivate to extend our marketing globally, our efforts in securing more air capacity and our plan to create more advocates for Tasmania. The latter is an exciting area for the future. Our recent #Tassiestyle summer advocacy campaign exceeded all expectations with over 40 000 entries from operators, locals and visitors sharing key moments that portrayed their experience of Tasmania last summer. With Tasmanians playing such a big role in this success, we’re planning to invite the local community to play an even bigger role in attracting visitors to the state, through a Tasmanian brand advocacy program we’re aiming to introduce this year. And finally, we are reimagining our annual marketing program, introducing an ‘always on’ approach to our marketing, providing a continuous year round marketing program. Lastly, I’m pleased to report that Emma Terry has now started with us as our new Chief Marketing Officer. Emma has more than 17 years’ experience in marketing, strategy and international business, and as a passionate Tasmanian, has promoted our state nationally and internationally while working across a range of industries. Emma is already on the job developing our future marketing program. I know she is excited about her new appointment and is already getting around and meeting members of our tourism and hospitality industry.
June 2017 www.australianhotels.asn.au
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