Tourism Victoria recently launched its new marketing campaign ‘Wander Victoria’ which promotes travel to regional areas by Victorians.  Gippsland is very well positioned to take advantage of this campaign which will run for the next three years.  The focus on natural landscapes, local produce and hospitality and a relaxing holiday experience are perfectly aligned to what we offer in Gippsland.  To make sure your business or town maximises the opportunities available I encourage you to have a web listing on visitvictoria.com.au / inspiredbygippsland.com.au and to contact us with images, deals and packages or newsworthy stories.  Marketing campaigns like this new one can only work for us if we do the work to be part of it.  Let’s make sure Gippsland is the destination of choice when people decide to Wander Victoria.

Kind regards,
Terry Robinson

Watch the Wander VIctoria film here.
For more information read our blog here.

If there is just one thing you can do to leverage off the Wander Victoria campaign it is to ensure you have an ATDW listing which places your business on VisitVictoria.com and Inspiredbygippsland.com.au

All existing visitvictoria.com business and event listings have recently been migrated to www.atdw-online.com.au which is operated by the Australian Tourism Data Warehouse (ATDW).

We encourage all businesses to place an 'offer' on the visitvictoria.com / inspiredbygippsland.com website to take advantage of the increased traffic the campaign will generate.  For a limited time we will be fully subsidising the cost of the web deal for those who already have a listing.  This would normally cost $250.

Read how to create an ATDW listing here
Read how to create a Web Deal and Package for the campaign here.

Image: Visit Victoria Listing: Moorings at Metung

As part of Tourism Victoria's Wander Victoria campaign we hosted three Instagram digital influencers to create inspiring Gippsland imagery.  These influencers have thousands of followers and have proven social media inspiration can lead to conversion. 

We encourage all businesses and individuals to add images to the #WanderVictoria feed by setting their Instagram accounts on public and tagging their photos with the campaign hashtag #WanderVictoria and #inspiredbygippsland.

Destination Gippsland supports ongoing industry development for Gippsland tourism businesses.  We understand small business owners are often time poor and busy working in their business, not on their business so we have prepared some articles to assist with  business development.

• Read our "top five tips"  to assist your business to grow.
• Read our article "Grow your business during the low season"

Image: Montfort Manor

Gippsland was represented at the recent Asia-Pacific Incentives and Meetings Expo (AIME) on February 23-24 alongside Business Events Victoria.  AIME is where meetings, events and incentives industry decision makers meet to search for business event venues and ideas across Australia, Asia-Pacific and the rest of the globe. The exhibition unites a community of over 4,000 suppliers and meetings and events planners.
Business Events Gippsland (BEG) represented 15 businesses from the updated BEG brochure and website. 

For more information visit businesseventsgippsland.com.au

Image: Alison Conroy and Phoebe Honey of Destination Gippsland.

Tourism Victoria's London office and STA Travel have released their #AustraliaRoadtrip - Straight Outta Melbourne campaign to entice the international youth market to visit regional Victoria.  We worked closely with Tourism Victoria and the team of digital influencers (featured below) to help produce photography and video content for the international campaign.  Gippsland's own Andrew Northover produced the video for the campaign which was released last week.  Watch it here.

We are pleased to introduce Alison Conroy as our new Marketing Manager

Alison has extensive tourism sales and marketing experience across Australia for Voyages Hotels and Resorts, Northern Territory Tourism and Star Ratings Australia.

She moved from Sydney to Gippsland last year and has strong ties to the region.  Alison was the standout candidate from a strong field of applicants due to her regional tourism experience and senior marketing roles.

To contact Alison: aconroy@destinationgippsland.com.au

The 2016 Baw Baw Shire Business Excellence Awards celebrate local business excellence, innovation, development and success. Applications close March 18.

For more information visit www.bawbawshire.vic.gov.au.

Image: Gardivalia festival, Baw Baw Shire Council

Victoria Tourism Industry Council (VTIC) is the peak body for Victoria’s tourism and events industry.  There are currently two VTIC industry awards open to the tourism industry:

• Lynette Bergin Tourism Award applications
• VTIC Small Business Development Award applications

We wish all Gippsland businesses and individuals luck in applying for these awards.
For more VTIC news visit their website here.

Bass Coast Shire Council is looking for applications from local businesses and community organisations for the upcoming funding round from the Building Disability Inclusive Businesses.
For more information visit the website here.

The free government Grant Finder helps find grants and assistance programmes that are relevant to your business.  For more information visit the grant finder website here.  

The Creating Smart Connections program is offering the opportunity for Gippsland tourism businesses to join the online community Tourism Tribe at no cost.  Register as a fully subsidised Gippsland business here.

• Baw Baw Shire 
• Bass Coast Shire - Event Calendar
• East Gippsland Shire - Discover East Gippsland
• Latrobe City - What's on in Latrobe
• South Gippsland Shire - Prom Country
• Wellington Shire Council - What's on in Wellington
   

Image: Autumn in Walhalla.  Windsor House.
 

The Gippsland Visitor Economy generates an estimated $2.8 billion in total expenditure.  It supports approximately 15,000 jobs in over 3,000 businesses across every community in Gippsland.  Tourism in Gippsland is everyone's business. 

Find out more about our Board of Directors here

Contact our team here