Coast’s ‘amazing story’ for tourists
THE head of the country’s tourism marketing body is backing the Gold Coast’s radical “live like a local” campaign, saying it will break new ground for the city.
Tourism Australia managing director John O’Sullivan, visiting the Coast yesterday, said the city’s tourism rebrand was on the right track and mirrored themes being pushed by the national body.
The Gold Coast Tourism campaign, launched earlier this year in a bid to shed the one-dimensional Glitter Strip image, focuses on promoting a vibrant dining and lifestyle culture and features locals enjoying the things they love about the place they call home.
It has the backing of city heavyweights including Mayor Tom Tate and Mantra hotels boss Bob East. But an associated promotional booklet with scant reference to theme parks was panned by Village Roadshow theme parks CEO Graham Burke as “so bland it might as well be Hobart”.
Mr O’Sullivan said their research showed dining, value for money and safety were key drivers of destination choice.
“We love it because it really goes to where we have taken the country to,” he said.
“The Gold Coast has an amazing story to tell on food and wine.”
Mr O’Sullivan said the new campaign would shake off complacent visitor attitudes.
“One thing we all combat, particularly with the New Zealand market, is overcoming complacency by customers,” he said.
“It’s ‘ Oh yeah, I know what the Gold Coast is about ... if I want to go to the beach or a theme park. You have to do something to change that complacency and I think they’ve done that very well with the new campaign.”
Mr O’Sullivan acknowledged that while visitor numbers were higher than ever – with more than a million people arriving in the Coast from overseas in the past 12 months – bed nights and spending per visitor were down.
He said the figures were explained by a combination of changing visitor habits, with a tendency towards shorter stays, and an increase in the number of Chinese tourists from “secondary cities”.
“We want them because there are a lot of people in those secondary cities but they spend less than visitors from Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou,” he said. “Over time you will see growth but the spend is a little lumpy.”