Marketing Your Tourism Business Online

Did you know “Almost 70% of accommodation bookings are made online yet only a third of businesses have online booking facilities”?

Destination Gippsland engaged Digital Marketing expert Russell Easther of Switched On Tourism to lead the Gippsland Tourism industry through a four part series of hands-on Digital Marketing workshops in East Gippsland and South Gippsland. Tailored to meet the demands of busy tourism operators, the workshops were held once a month from May through to August 2012.

The four part series included:

Workshop 1:
Web Marketing: Trends, search engines and social media
In this workshop we cover the background and trends of digital marketing in Australia. Before lunch, everyone can log into a Google Analytics accounts to see the performance of a website and learn how to interpret the top level data. We step participants through all three sections of Google and introduce five broad topics from planning to social media.

Workshop 2:
Terrific Tourism Operator Websites: Your must haves and more
A well-presented and functioning website is a central point in an operator’s web marketing tool kit. We allow participants to reflect on their own website privately against several 'must have' elements presented in the workshops. We then review nine elements that will make a website 'shine', to ultimately convert more visitors to leads or bookings. Throughout the course of the day, we demystify much of the jargon associated with websites and give confidence to the operators to interact with web professionals.

Workshop 3:
"Straight Up" Social Media: TripAdvisor, Facebook, Blogs and more
Social media is happening whether we like it or not! TripAdvisor is a major component in social, and we dedicate the best part of the morning session to understanding and using TripAdvisor to our advantage. In the afternoon we step through Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Blogging and more. Whether an operator chooses to participate in social media outside of TripAdvisor is their choice, but they will leave seeing examples of successful social elements at work from other operators.

Workshop 4:
Boosting your bookings with digital strategies
As the basics are now well and truly covered off, our attention moves further a field and we concentrate on operators digital presence on other websites. We aim to increase direct and referral bookings through many techniques including SEO, optimising content on 3rd party booking sites, measuring link sharing agreements and configuring Google Analytics for automated reporting and alerts. We explore strategies to encourage existing clients to rebook, through retention based marketing strategies.

Dates:
August 30, 10am – 4pm Wonthaggi**
August 31, 10am – 4pm Cowes**

Cost:
These workshops are being heavily subsidised by Destination Gippsland to make them affordable for tourism operators to attend all workshops.

• Listed on visitvictoria.com or inspiredbygippsland.com.au:                                                   $100
• Member of a Gippsland Local or Regional Tourism Association (but not on visitvictoria.com):   $125
• General business rate:                                                                                                     $150
• All Four Workshops:                                                                                            25% discount
• If businesses have already completed Workshop One in 2011 they are entitled to 25% discount on following three workshops
  
  Includes:
  Morning tea and coffee on arrival, lunch and afternoon tea
  Workshop booklet
  
  How to Book: **To book for Wonthaggi or Cowes contact Teresa Mahood: 03 5951 3383 or Kim Storey: 03 5952 2729