In a move to differentiate Western Australia from tourism destination competition, Tourism WA is launching a campaign based on travel by road to our unique regional attractions. In a marketing space dominated by the “big end of town” airlines, and hotels, Western Australia has suffered a drop in tourist arrivals by comparison to other more developed Australian tourism destinations.
In its strategic research into caravanning and camping based tourism, A Strategic Approach to Caravan & Camping Tourism in Western Australia, (brighthouse.consulting/squarf34d), which became the framework for the WA Tourism Caravan and Camping Action Plan 2013-2018, Brighthouse Consulting identified the enormous potential to expand Western Australia’s tourism through promoting road travel to our iconic regional destinations.
Now Tourism Minister Paul Papalia has revealed a new campaign, which will be advertised across nine countries and broader Australia, will market WA as ‘The Road Trip State’ as part of the state’s new multi-million dollar tourism strategy.
“What the campaign does, is it takes what might have been perceived as our greatest weakness -that is that we are a third of the continent, massive open spaces, small population spread a long way apart - and we turned that into a real strength, so we’re going to market that as a real positive,” he said.
“We’re going to sell a range of road trips right across the state - every region of the state, short ones, medium term ones and long road trips targeting all demographics.
“It’s attractive to retirees who have a bit of time on their hands, and also - a very important part of the market - those younger ones, those working holiday makers, those backpackers that we’ve had trouble with in recent times, so we’re looking to use this as a big boost to get people into the state and out to the regions.”
The campaign sells Western Australia’s natural wonders such as Lucky Bay in Esperance, the Wilyabrup Cliffs in Margaret River and Cable Beach in Broome.
It will be shown in nine countries including Singapore, Malaysia, China, Germany, the U.K, Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand, Indonesia and the rest of Australia.
As part of the campaign, the state government will work with regional car hire businesses to offer ‘one way fly and drive’ packages to allow tourists to drive a car up to the Coral Coast, and leave it there without being burdened with a large bill to get the car back to Perth.
The campaign will run for eight months, and may be extended if successful.