Tourism Tasmania has today launched Not Really For Tourists, its new domestic marketing campaign and the latest evolution of its award-winning Come Down For Air brand platform.
Deliberately irreverent and tongue-in-cheek rather than anti-tourist, the campaign combines Tourism Tasmania’s signature wry humour with bold, category-defying creative to invite Australians to reflect on how they travel and what makes a holiday truly meaningful to them.
The campaign holds a mirror to familiar tourist habits and mindsets that can get in the way of truly experiencing a place – from overplanning and chasing viral trends to blindly following online reviews, joining queues and focusing more on capturing content than connecting or being in the moment.
Rolling out across Australian screens from today, the campaign’s hero film, The Line Up, follows a tourist in an unidentifiable city who joins a seemingly endless queue for a viral pastry, only to find the line stretching all the way across the ocean. So caught up in the pursuit, he loses sight of why he joined the queue in the first place. Finding himself in Tasmania, he realises the futility of it all, stepping out of line and leaving the crowd behind to discover something far more rewarding.
The film closes with ‘Not Really For Tourists’, a playfully provocative statement echoed across the broader campaign through wry creative executions reflecting on modern tourism culture.
The advertising anchors a broader integrated campaign, including PR and social media activations, alongside new nationally representative consumer research revealing that three in four Australians (75 per cent) would rather be called a ‘traveller’ than a ‘tourist’.
The integrated campaign brings together five world-first De-Tourist Trails, a new series of quirky video shorts marking the return of cult icon Lee Lin Chin, advocate and creator partnerships, and a competition giving four Australians the chance to win a Tasmanian holiday for two to ‘de-tourist’ themselves.
Paid media executions
The paid campaign will span free-to-air television, BVOD and cinema in mainland Australia, complemented by digital, social, print and large-format out-of-home (OOH) advertising and media partnerships.
Coinciding with the launch, a Not Really For Tourists campaign manifesto will appear as full- page advertisements across selected Nine and News Corp newspaper mastheads, supported by social placements. The manifesto holds a mirror to familiar tourist habits, inviting Australians to reflect on how they travel and consider Tasmania as an antidote to the pressures of modern tourism.
The OOH rollout will take the campaign into busy tourist and transport locations over the summer holiday period. A digital domination at Manly Wharf in Sydney will reach ferry passengers, while a takeover of Melbourne’s Southern Cross Station will capture travellers moving through the city. Tram portrait advertising in Sydney and large-format murals in Sydney and Melbourne will extend the campaign’s presence across high-impact locations.
Copy-led executions will feature wry headlines such as ‘Itineraries will only get you so far’, ‘Draws a small crowd’ and ‘The best feeds won’t make your feed’. Media partnerships will include The Daily Aus and Broadsheet.
The campaign will roll out in phases, initially establishing the Not Really For Tourists proposition through context-led advertising, supported by earned media, social and advocacy storytelling.
Evolving Come Down For Air
Not Really For Tourists is designed to evolve Tourism Tasmania’s Come Down For Air platform, strengthen Tasmania’s brand salience and reinforce its distinctiveness in the Australian travel market.
The campaign’s creative strategy positions Tasmania as an antidote to the pressures of modern tourism and the straitjacket of modern life.
Tourism Tasmania chief marketing officer Lindene Cleary said the campaign builds on seven years of Come Down For Air, evolving the platform to keep it relevant and distinctive.
“Come Down For Air has always been about experiencing the world a little differently. Seven years on, the pressures of life have become even more pervasive, and the need to slow down, think, feel and connect is more relevant than ever. With Not Really For Tourists, we’re evolving the platform to reinforce what sets Tasmania apart – both from conventional tourism culture and from everyday life – to give Australians a fresh reason to consider what a trip here can offer,” she said.
“Not Really For Tourists isn’t meant to be taken literally or as an exclusionary statement – we’re a tourism agency, after all, and that’s part of the tension we’re having fun with. We’ve been very deliberate in how we’ve brought the idea to life, using the wry humour and signature wink-and- nudge Australians have come to know through Come Down For Air, including our Off Season campaign. But at the same time, there’s a genuine message beneath the knowing humour. We want to invite Australians to reflect on what travel means to them, how they choose to experience the places they visit and what they contribute along the way.
“As a challenger brand, we know we need to be brave and distinctive to keep cutting through in a crowded travel market. So much of Not Really For Tourists – from the creative idea and its executions to the partners we’ve chosen to work with – has been designed to subvert the conventions of tourism marketing and position Tasmania as a place that offers something distinctly different from typical tourism culture.”
David Fraser, ECD at BMF, said: “It’s almost impossible to travel in 2026 and not find yourself in a crowd, queue, or ‘must-do’ activity at some point. Tasmania offers a breather from much of that. A freedom to travel on your own terms. This truth has always been part of Come Down For Air, and now felt like the perfect time to make it a little more unmissable.”
PR, social & advocacy integrations
An integrated PR and social campaign will extend Not Really For Tourists beyond paid media, combining consumer research, content-led PR activations, and advocate and creator partnerships to amplify the campaign’s creative proposition and build context around its deliberately wry positioning.
Supporting the launch, new nationally representative research conducted by Decibel Research found that three in four Australians (75 per cent) would rather be called a ‘traveller’ than a ‘tourist’, while 86 per cent believe tourist mindsets can detract from holiday enjoyment.*
The research also identified Australia’s top five ‘tourist conditions’, based on the habits and mindsets Australians most recognised in themselves, while revealing a strong desire for deeper, more meaningful and authentic travel experiences.
To bring Not Really For Tourists to life beyond the advertising, Tourism Tasmania has launched the world’s first De-Tourist Trails – five new trails across Tasmania designed to help visitors switch off ‘tourist mode’, detour off the beaten path and rediscover the deeper meaning of travel. Live today at discovertasmania.com.au, the trails collectively feature more than 200 places to explore, experiences to enjoy and places to stay.
To amplify the campaign across earned and social media, Tourism Tasmania has partnered with Australian television icon Lee Lin Chin on a new series of quirky video shorts titled Lee Lin Investigates, released today across Tourism Tasmania’s owned channels, including YouTube.
Eight years after stepping away from television news, Chin returns to her journalistic roots on her first-ever visit to Tasmania, becoming the first person to experience a De-Tourist Trail. Chin’s deadpan humour, fierce individuality and decidedly offline approach to life made her a natural fit for the campaign’s unconventional take on travel.
Investigates follows Chin as she explores the art of ‘de-touristing’ in Tasmania, venturing off the beaten track, meeting local characters and discovering how slowing down, following your curiosity and making time for genuine connection can lead to the most meaningful travel experiences.
The campaign also invites Australians to ‘de-tourist’ themselves through a consumer competition launched today, offering four Tasmanian holidays for two, with each winner matched to one of the four regional De-Tourist Trails.
Advocate and creator partnerships will further extend the campaign beyond launch, with storytellers spanning culture, food, visual storytelling and positive-impact travel sharing their experiences across Instagram and TikTok. Selected for their distinctive perspectives and mindful approaches to travel, the creators will inspire audiences to connect more meaningfully with Tasmania.
Supporting the campaign’s broader cross-platform approach is a distributed discovery strategy combining social search with generative engine optimisation (GEO) across AI-powered search and LLM-driven platforms. The approach aims to improve discoverability while reinforcing the context needed to understand the wry humour and intended meaning of Not Really For Tourists.
To learn more about Tourism Tasmania’s Not Really For Tourists campaign, visit the Discover Tasmania website.
Campaign credits
Client: Tourism Tasmania
Creative Agency: BMF Australia PR Agency: Havas Red
Digital Agency: Orchard
Media Agency: Starcom
Campaign Content Credits
The Line Up
Film Production Company: Finch
Stills and Video Production Company: Chee Productions
