With intrastate restrictions starting to lift and interstate tourism edging closer, Tourism and Events Queensland (TEQ), CHE Proximity (CHEP) and Louder have joined forces to launch a new digital experience for travellers to explore the best of Queensland.
The newly released website forms a critical part of a broader strategy to promote Queensland’s experiences, destinations and attractions at a crucial time for the state’s tourism sector and the project delivers an improved digital experience for residents of Queensland, interstate and international visitors.
After a successful pitch last year, TEQ appointed CHE proximity to deliver the UX, design and development services for the digital experience. An existing TEQ partner, Louder, was tasked to deliver data strategy, tagging and analytics, building on their existing engagement consulting to TEQ on their marketing transformation.
TEQ selected Adobe as their technology of choice for its enhanced, multi-channel marketing experience capability across email, addressable media, social and web channels. CHE Proximity and Louder worked hand in hand to define and set-up the personalisation strategy that allows the ecosystem to adapt to different user needs based on interests, demographics, interaction behaviour and place of origin.
“The Queensland.com launch is the first of many major traveller facing experience changes to TEQ’s marketing efforts. It represents one of many steps that the organisation have gone through to deliver on a progressive customer experience-led marketing approach incorporating a team, technology and data transformation process that intends to present to potential visitors a highly personalised best of Queensland experience.” says Andrew Hughes, founding consultant of Louder.
One of the focuses of the transformation was the activation of the experience pillars, more precisely how TEQ communicate and customise that experience to users whilst gathering rich data and insights in a timely manner. This focus emphasised the need to develop a fluid content delivery and personalisation framework, so the experience adjusts seamlessly to user needs. This approach was only viable if TEQ’s content team were given the appropriate level of curation capability in the content management process whilst also ensuring the personalisation operations were manageable.
“The richness of Queensland’s regional territories and activities is limitless. Our research identified visitor aspirations to discover unique suggestions from locals and other “off the beaten track” recommendations. We worked hard with the TEQ team to build these experiences into the platform and create an inspiring, and highly functional research tool for anyone interested in visiting the State,” added Olivier Laude, client partner at CHE Proximity.
The ecosystem delivers an immersive experience where each component leads to another so users can explore at length the various destinations, activities, accommodation, special deals and events on offer. The component library of the website includes maps, road trips, articles and tips, special deals, personal bookmarks and other search functions. These have all been thoroughly researched and tested with travellers to deliver an experience that is truly designed by users, for users.
The newly released website forms part of a large plan to drive a data-led strategy across every experience touchpoint. “The new website is a key piece in a broader digital transformation that covers data, technology, people skills and more. Key to the overall program is making smarter use of data that delivers a more engaging, personalised experience that ultimately delivers increased visitation to Queensland,” said Julian Croft, platforms, media and partnerships director at Tourism and Events Queensland.
It’s a challenging time for the tourism industry. With more than 235,000 Queenslanders employed in the tourism sector, representing $27 billion in expenditure for the state (Dec 2019), an update of the ‘shop window’ for the state could not have come at a better time.
“The launch of this new platform comes at a critical time for the tourism sector. The new Queensland.com will play a key role in what will be a broad and far-reaching program to help Queensland’s tourism and events industry rebuild after the impacts of COVID-19” says Michael Branagh, group executive, global marketing at Tourism and Events Queensland.
