Hey, Hey, these campaigns are showing results
Posted by editor (editor) on Nov 03 2009
2009 >>

Three recent Tourism Queensland marketing campaigns have reported strong results, including the catchy Hey, Hey this is Queensland, and quick sales campaigns for the Whitsundays and Gold Coast, Tourism Minister Peter Lawlor said today.

The 10-month Hey, Hey this is Queensland TV, print, radio and online campaign features four of the Best Job in the World candidates and is set to the theme song of ‘60s band The Monkees.

Mr Lawlor said it had driven visitors to look at more than 140,000 Best Holiday campaign website pages since its launch on August 31.

“The feedback from operators involved in the Hey, Hey this is Queensland campaign has been extremely positive,” he said.

“Several operators have reported huge spikes in referrals from the campaign website in the first few weeks, some by more than 250 percent.

”In addition, accommodation provider Mantra Group received more than 1400 enquiries in a single day just after the campaign launched.

“Mantra Group promotes more than 140 properties across Australia and these enquiries translated into the sale of more than 2400 room nights, 70 percent of which were in Queensland,” he said.

“While it’s still early days, this is a strong testament that the catchy campaign has achieved the cut-through we were aiming for.”

Mr Lawlor said Hey, Hey this is Queensland was one of several domestic campaigns aimed at encouraging holidaymakers to book a Queensland holiday.

“Tourism Queensland recently launched the Get Some Gold Coast Sun Sale campaign with Gold Coast Tourism and major online travel agent Wotif, which has shown some great results,” he said.

“The joint Get Some Gold Coast Sun Sale campaign involving 76 Gold Coast operators, began on September 3 and finished on September 15.

“Over the campaign period, Wotif.com has reported a nearly 17 percent increase in Gold Coast bookings through its website on the same period last year.

“Unique visitors to Wotif.com’s Gold Coast regional pages were also up by more than 240 percent over that period.

“It is estimated that visitor expenditure from the campaign could total as much as $6.6 million.

“These are fantastic results for both the operators involved in the campaign and the Gold Coast’s tourism industry as a whole.

“In addition to the Get Some Gold Coast Sun Sale campaign, the recent Whitsundays 74 Islands Out of the Blue 74 Hour Sale ran for 74 hours and recorded over 19,700 visits to its campaign website, 2,300 seat bookings through airline partner Virgin Blue and 2000 room nights across the region.

“It is estimated that this will inject around $2.5 million into the Whitsundays economy as visitors spend money on a range of items such as accommodation, meals, tours and shopping.

“Whitsundays tourism operators reported that as soon as the campaign launched their phones were running hot and one participating operator stated that it was the best Tourism Queensland campaign they had been involved in for generating inquiries and bookings.

“Several other participating operators reported a significant increase in bookings as a direct result of the campaign.”

Mr Lawlor said tourism was one of the state’s most important industries.

“Tourism directly employs 119,000 Queenslanders and a further 97,000 indirectly,” he said.

“The State Government is committed to protecting these jobs and as such Tourism Queensland has devised a series of hard-hitting tactical campaigns aimed at getting holidaymakers to book a Queensland holiday now.”

Last changed: Nov 03 2009 at 9:16 AM