Tourism Australia has announced a $12 million visual marketing package aimed at supporting tourism businesses across Australia.
Aiming to support tourism operators in their recovery and to drive increased visitation by helping them to better market their experiences and attractions, the National Experience Content Initiative will provide new visual imagery for up to 1,800 tourism experiences from around 57 regions across Australia.
Tourism Australia said the new package would ensure operators’ marketing materials and online product listings “stand out” in search results and are booked more often by domestic and international travellers.
Tourism Australia managing director Phillipa Harrison said the National Experience Content Initiative was the largest and most significant content initiative that Tourism Australia had ever embarked on.
“Visual imagery is one of the most important factors for inspiring consumers at the critical stages of researching, planning, or booking travel online,” Harrison said.
“The COVID crisis has dealt a heavy blow to our industry, with many tourism businesses that would normally invest heavily in marketing having had to significantly reduce their marketing budgets for the foreseeable future.
“While domestic travel has helped keep many businesses afloat throughout the crisis, our industry will not fully recover until international travellers return. With Australia likely to be slower than others to reopen to international visitors, it is vital that our operators are armed with compelling and contemporary marketing assets to ensure they are in the best possible position to capture demand in what will be a hyper-competitive global market.
“That is why we have set out to capture high quality imagery and footage that showcases the best tourism experiences on offer from every corner of Australia, and to really bring these to life for consumer and trade audiences.”
The National Experience Content Initiative is scheduled to run until June 2022 and is being delivered in close consultation with state and territory, and regional tourism organisations.
Between 10 and 50 products and experiences will be featured from each of the roughly 57 regions to be included in the program, based on “comprehensive eligibility criteria”.
The program will seek to engage locally-based professional photographers and content creators from each of the regions, with each featured tourism operator to receive at least 100 to 200 images as well as video footage to use across their social media channels, websites and brochures.
Content developed will also be published on the Tourism Australia image and video gallery, which is accessible by the general public, media and trade—free of charge.
For further information on the National Experience Content Initiative, click here.
Featured image source: Tourism Australia
