Published on : Monday, March 9, 2015
Local tourism operators will be the big winners from a month-long marketing and events blitz aimed at driving new visitors to the Northern Territory.
“Our tourism industry is getting back on its feet after a tough decade with the latest figures showing a 14 per cent increase in total domestic visitors. At 1.059 million people, this is the highest figure for five years,” Chief Minister Adam Giles said.
“I’m optimistic figures due out later this week will show a further improvement but there’s still more work to do.
“To drive this, Tourism NT has embarked on a month of strategic marketing aimed at opening up both new and existing visitor sectors.”
Over March, Tourism NT is partnering with Qantas in the UK on a consumer digital media campaign to drive travellers to the airline’s website.
“The aim is to increase passengers travelling to the NT with the airline by promoting the connections to both the Top End and Red Centre via the Walkabout Pass on offer from Qantas,” Mr Giles said.
“We’ve also just wrapped up an eight day Qantas campaign with domestic sale fares to Alice Springs, Darwin and Uluru and the TODAY Show was broadcasting from Uluru this morning.”
The arrival of Virgin Australia in Alice Springs at the end of the month presents a huge opportunity to drive additional tourist traffic to the Red Centre.
“We’re spending $250,000 on an Alice Springs-focused ‘Choose your own adventure’ marketing campaign aimed at maximising the benefits Virgin Australia’s entry into the Central Australian market with regular flights between Darwin and Adelaide via Alice Springs,” Mr Giles said.
“On top of all this, we’ve been blitzing southern holiday makers over last week with a pop-up Territory ‘waterhole’ in Sydney’s Martin Place and the annual NT Muster involving hundreds of travel agents in Sydney and Melbourne.”
This included the launch of Tourism NT’s new Virtual Journeys website aimed at helping agents understand the Territory’s attractions and better sell them to their clients.
A large Territory delegation has also just returned from this year’s ITB Trade Fair in Berlin which is the largest of its kind anywhere in the world.
“Tourism NT has also begun a new international marketing strategy partnering with non-travel media to reach potential tourists in niche sectors,” Mr Giles said.
“This included the recent Territory episode of Top Gear and two international cooking programs which aired last week with a combined potential audience of almost 40 million gourmet travellers.
“In a similar effort to reach motoring fans, we’ve invested in a new sponsorship deal with the Brad Jones Racing team which now has the ‘Drive the NT’ slogan emblazoned across its VF Commodores.”
Darwin Cruise Week has been a huge success with passengers pumping an estimated $2.5 million into the economy and booking around 3000 local tours.
“This is a fantastic initiative that has been warmly embraced by mall traders and tour operators in a traditionally quiet time of the year. It’s something I want to see more of and that’s why we’ve just released a draft Cruise Sector Activation Plan for public feedback on how we can build this important part of our tourist industry.”
This month of activity will culminate in a Tourism Industry Roadshow visiting Katherine, Kakadu, Nhulunbuy, Tennant Creek, Uluru and Alice Springs to share our marketing plans and get feedback from operators.
Tags: Northern Territory
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