Brisbane tourism operators go digital for China market

Brisbane tourism operators are being urged by the Newman Government to broaden their marketing strategy to attract more Chinese independent travellers.

Minister for Tourism, Major Events, Small Business and the Commonwealth Games Jann Stuckey said two digital marketing workshops were being held in Brisbane tomorrow to help operators improve their online activity.

"Last financial year Brisbane welcomed 109,000 Chinese visitors who stayed 2.6 million nights in the region," Ms Stuckey said.

"By working with tourism operators to refine and improve their online presence, we hope to see more Chinese travellers choosing to visit the Brisbane area."

Ms Stuckey said the workshops were designed to help tourism operators target the Chinese free independent traveller (FITs) market who structure their own travel through travel agents and the internet to find information and make bookings.

“Chinese free independent travellers have the highest competency in English in the market, are more likely to be university educated, tend to search for information themselves and make decisions based on experiences rather than available packages,” she said.

“The Newman Government’s $8 million Attracting Aviation Investment Fund has resulted in increased flights from China into Queensland and the online environment provides a real opportunity for tourism operators to target these visitors."

Ms Stuckey said the Newman Government's goal was to double overnight visitor expenditure in Queensland to $30 billion per annum by 2020 and the Chinese traveller market would help reach this target.

Tourism Queensland Acting CEO Leanne Coddington said the ‘Digital Marketing for the China Market’ workshops were best suited to operators who already had good digital marketing knowledge and some experience in the China market.

“The workshops will cover topics such as web design and hosting, search-engine marketing and social media,” Ms Coddington said.

Brisbane Marketing CEO John Aitken said all tourism operators should look at how they could improve their digital capability.

“If local tourist operators want to expand in the online market they need to be aggressive in developing world class digital platforms, because invariably customers will benchmark their digital experience against global best practice.”

A video of one of the Digital Marketing for the China Market workshops will be available for tourism operators to view via www.tq.com.au/digitalready in the coming weeks.

[ENDS] 20 November 2012   

Media Contact:  Minister’s Office – 3225 1005         Tourism Queensland – 3535 5840