‘There’s nothing like backpacking Australia’: Industry told to get behind new TA campaign
The backpacking industry has been encouraged to leverage Tourism Australia’s ‘There’s nothing like Australia’ marketing campaign after managing director Andrew McEvoy unveiled the new strategy in Sydney this morning.
A competition will launch on April 15 encouraging members of the public to share their experiences of Australia by uploading photographs of their favourite places along with 25 words of explanation starting with the phrase “There’s nothing like…”
Every entry posted on the website nothinglikeaustralia.com will be tagged and geo-located, building an experiential map of Australia for would-be visitors. The results will also provide content for the advertising campaign to follow.
Tourism Australia executive general manager marketing Nick Baker said previous international visitors will also be able to upload their stories after the initial phase is complete.
All content will be pre-moderated to prevent abuse, although McEvoy said he was comfortable with the idea of individual companies using the campaign to promote their own business.
He added: “We have a third party moderator who will look for profanity, nudity and political incorrectness, it’s not real-time user-generated content. But we are unashamedly a marketing organisation – we don’t want to discourage marketing. We hope people are passionate about the campaign and really get involved.”
Oz Experience general manager Greg Cole told Thumbrella: “I can see the campaign working in our sector – ‘there’s nothing like backpacking in Australia…’ for example.”
Meanwhile, Australian Tourism Export Council (ATEC) managing director Matt Hingerty said the inclusive nature of the campaign meant it could be adapted to promote a specific market niche such as adventure tourism.
He added: “This campaign encourages local communities and businesses to get themselves on the tourism map. The concept gives them a great deal of control over how they would like their region to be seen in the eyes of the world.”
By Martin Lane · March 31st, 2010 at 2:12 pm
Comments
31 Mar 10
2:44 pm
Good idea taking advantage of new media, internet and related channels but …… Having backpacked, travelled and done package tours I think that one tends to listen and be influenced more by friends in home country and community while travelling.
Possibly an idea of involving Oz and international non English speaking background communities to become involved? Otherwise it may only attract anglo world interest from UK, Ireland, South Africa and North America, i.e. “basket case” economies, and having less penetration in Europe, Asia and South America?
31 Mar 10
4:09 pm
Hi Andrew,
With the benefit of having attended the briefing this morning I can tell you that the idea you speak of in your 2nd paragraph is part of the strategy.
1 Apr 10
11:59 am
Good one, speaking to a region soon related to marketing and using the internet, would be encouraging their Italian, German, Chinese, Turk etc. communities to get involved in their other language, would have significant impact.
Fits in well with http://www.austrralia.com virtual presence internationally through other language info and weblinks to Aussie Specialists other language websites offshore.
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