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Hi everyone,
I hope you’re all doing well, after what we’ve heard was a really successful July school holiday period for a lot of WA tourism operators – especially out in the regions.
Regular conversations with our Regional Tourism Organisations and industry operators have kept us in the loop with anecdotal information to show where people are travelling.
In some areas we’re hearing extremely positive news – our South West is enjoying a particularly busy period, with people booking out traditional tourism hotspots such as Margaret River and Dunsborough. Places further south are welcoming the overflow in what is normally a quiet winter period. Albany in particular has had some standout results with Albany Visitor Centre reporting a 284 per cent increase in accommodation bookings for June this year, compared to last year.
Our team that travelled to Geraldton recently for the Our Story workshops heard news of a bumper season for many operators in town, with Kalbarri and Shark Bay also booked out over the July holiday period. Exmouth was also bursting at the seams, swelling to around double its normal visitor numbers for school holidays.
We’re aware there are areas that are still struggling and need support - including the Kimberley region and our city hotels, as well as many tour and activity operators across the state - and we’re working hard to address this.
Our discounted airfares initiative with Virgin Australia to support Broome and Kununurra was a sell-out success. All of the 8,000 specially-priced tickets between Perth and Broome and Perth and Kununurra were snapped up in the first week of the promotion.
The Save Our Season initiative was also a great showcase of the Kununurra region to Perth business leaders. The visit provided a welcome boost to the local economy as well as showcasing the region as a future destination for business events and leisure itineraries.
We were given real insight into the issues facing local operators through our recent tourism roundtables in Broome and Kununurra. Thanks to everyone who took the time to participate in these valuable discussions.
We know it’s also a difficult time for our city hotel operators and we’re working with the Australian Hotels Association on a campaign to boost bookings. We’ll have more to share on this soon.
As you know, Tourism WA launched our major intrastate marketing campaign, Wander out Yonder, on WA Day to encourage West Aussies to explore our incredible State and support the local tourism industry. I thought it would be timely to give you an overview on the campaign to date.
Wander out Yonder was developed to inspire locals to take a different kind of holiday and enjoy a staycation in Perth or travel to new places and seek out new experiences out in WA’s diverse regions.
It features print, social, out-of-home, television, digital media and radio advertising, as well as targeted cooperative marketing campaigns with holiday offers across hotels, holiday parks, campervans and a variety of tours and experiences.
For example, we’ve partnered with caravan and holiday park group Top Parks and motorhome provider Britz Australia.
The partnership with Britz involves several influencer road trips that are taking place over July and August. It recently included a trip by Jarrad Seng and Brooke Blurton, who shared their travels from Perth to the Coral Coast on social media, inspiring others to follow suit and discover more of WA.
WA’s amazing range of holiday experiences will also be showcased to more than 900,000 RAC members in a special WA travel edition of RAC's Horizons magazine, which will also include a range of WA travel offers. This will be distributed to members in September.
If you need any more information on the campaign and how you can be involved, please visit our website.
Thanks everyone for their feedback and support. I’ll be back in touch again soon to fill you in on more initiatives we have to make sure people continue to go forth and wander around WA.
Before I sign off, it was great to hear today that Virgin has taken the initiative to build on the success of the discounted airfares to our Kimberley region. They’ve launched a 48-hour airfare sale overnight to the same locations we partnered with them last month to promote. We look forward to this providing another boost to tourism businesses in our north.
Regards
Brodie
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