WINNING FEELING

In the second of a fivepart series, the Bulletin examines the Games legacy have got to run it,” he said. “You can’t just go, ‘I could have scored then’.”

Mr Gould revealed Gold Coast Tourism had immediate plans in place to roll out visitor marketing campaigns targeting the drive market and interstate tourists.

“The biggest audience for the Commonwealth Games is actually the Australian domestic market,” he said.

“We are the ones that love the Commonwealth Games the most because we win so many things. So that’s probably the biggest TV audience for the Games and we want to capitalise on that and continue a really strong push into the Australian domestic market.”

From yesterday, Gold Coast Tourism had domestic marketing campaigns underway.

“It is lovely to have the international exposure – that is not insignificant – but where Gold Coast Tourism bread is buttered is in the domestic market so we’ll be pushing our domestic market very powerfully from April 16 onwards.”

From July 1, a new interstate campaign done in conjunction with Tourism and Events Queensland would be rolled out as well.

Mr Gould said a second key area Gold Coast Tourism would continue to focus on was attracting conference and conventions and their higherspending delegates. Upcoming major conferences include 7000 Chinese delegates for the Infinitus pharmaceutical conference worth an estimated $40 million to the city. Others include 1000 each for a Japanese business conference and Korean company. About 900 are booked in for a national liquor retailers conference.

“(After the Commonwealth Games) we know a lot of these countries will take these messages back to their organisations that this is a great place which can put on terrific events.”

Mr O’Sullivan said in terms of the advertising exposure of the Commonwealth Games, Tourism Australia’s recent cheeky star-studded ad during the Super Bowl – pretending to be a remake of Crocodile Dundee – was worth about $100 million.