Moreton Bay tourism operators improve online skills
Posted by editor (editor) on Oct 07 2009
2009 >>

Tourism operators in the Moreton Bay and Islands region are taking part in an online social media workshop today as part of a Tourism Queensland program to enhance online skills in the local industry, Tourism Minister Peter Lawlor said.

Mr Lawlor said around 30 local operators were taking advantage of the chance to learn more about how online social media, in particular video, could benefit their tourism businesses through the State Government-funded program.

“This program will give tourism operators in Moreton Bay insight into the world of opportunities that online marketing provides today,” Mr Lawlor said.

“The workshop will include an introduction to the benefits of social media and will be followed with help in producing online videos for each individual business over the next two months.

“Social networking websites like YouTube, Flickr and Facebook are opening up huge opportunities for local tourism operators to market themselves to the online community in a variety of different ways.

“Participants will learn skills such as how to post videos onto their YouTube channel and incorporate them in their own websites, as well as tracking results.

“Moreton Bay and Islands tourism operators were adversely affected by the oil spill in South East Queensland earlier this year and the Bligh Government is proud to be supporting this program, which will give local operators the necessary tools to help them compete in the online arena.”

Tourism Queensland Acting CEO Steve McRoberts said it was essential for tourism operators to understand how to connect with today’s consumers online.

“Statistics show that nearly half of today’s travellers use the internet to research their holidays and many of these consumers also book their holidays online,” Mr McRoberts said.

“For example, the average monthly visitation to Tourism Queensland’s consumer website queenslandholidays.com is more than 260,000.

“The use of the internet in today’s world is enormous. Social media networks have changed the way the world does business and the impact on the tourism industry is no different.

“Tourism Queensland itself is actively involved in social media networks, with the use of Twitter, Facebook and YouTube in our current Best Job in the World campaign a perfect example of how the tourism industry can work these mediums to our advantage.

“This workshop follows last year’s launch of Tourism Queensland’s free online Tourism eKit (www.tq.com.au/online), which was designed to help operators venture into online marketing and has already registered more than 100,000 downloads in just over 12 months.

“It’s great to see many local Moreton Bay-based tourism businesses taking part in this program, from both the mainland and the islands.

“Operators from a number of Moreton Bay’s islands have signed up, such as North Stradbroke Island, Moreton Island, Bribie Island and also smaller ones, such as Macleay Island and Lamb Island.”

The Tourism Queensland workshop will be held in Manly and will assisted by media and marketing experts from Untangle My Web and TPD Media.

MEDIA CONTACTS:
Minister’s Office - 3225 1005
Tourism Queensland - 3535 5356

Last changed: Oct 13 2009 at 9:14 AM