Tourism Australia calls on Aussies to travel locally once again – signing on Hamish Blake and Zoe Foster-Blake for its latest campaign

• Tourism Australia has launched its latest iteration of the ‘Holiday Here This Year’ campaign.
• First launched in January to boost tourism following Australia’s horror bushfire season, the latest campaign is calling on Aussies to once again travel domestically as restrictions start to ease.
• Australian couple Hamish Blake and Zoe Foster-Blake are part of this campaign.

Tourism Australia is calling on Aussies to ‘Holiday Here This Year’ once again.

The campaign first launched in January to drive tourism to part of Australia that were ravaged by bushfires. Now with coronavirus restrictions slowly easing around the country – save for Victoria – the campaign is calling on Aussies to start booking their next domestic trip.

“With the peak summer travel period just around the corner, it is crucial that we continue to remind people of all the incredible destinations and tourism experiences that are right on their doorstep waiting to be explored,” Tourism Australia Managing Director Phillipa Harrison said in a statement.

Tourism Australia signed on Aussie couple, comedian Hamish Blake and entrepreneur Zoe Foster-Blake for the campaign to inspire residents to go travelling. As part of the video campaign, the couple works up where they could go on a holiday and what activities they could do.

This is the first in a series of efforts the tourism body will roll out in the coming months to ramp up domestic tourism, especially to areas that are popular among international tourists.

“Our goal is to try and get Australians travelling differently by using the Holiday Here This Year campaign platform to urge them to start ticking off their holiday bucket list or heading interstate for a trip of a lifetime, and in turn provide a much needed boost especially to those areas most affected by the bushfires and COVID-19,” Harrison added.

 

The tourism sector has been hard-hit by the coronavirus pandemic, which caused flights to be grounded, border closures and a bevvy of restrictions for businesses.

Federal Tourism Minister Simon Birmingham said in a statement that with interstate travel available to many areas in Australia, it may be time to plan for a holiday.

“With our international borders expected to remain closed for the foreseeable future and the summer holidays only a couple of months away, this is a shout out to all Australians who are in a position to do so, to try something new and consider booking a holiday to a destination within Australia they have never been to before,” he said.

The campaign comes as some states and territories have been launching travel incentives to encourage residents to travel locally.

Among them are Tasmania’s ‘Make Yourself at Home’ scheme, where residents can claim back what they spent on accommodation and travel experiences in the state and Northern Territory giving travellers a $200 rebate for every $1000 they spend on travel bookings.

On Monday, the South Australian government reported a spike in tourism search traffic to southaustralia.com, particularly from neighbouring NSW.

“In the past fourteen days, the SATC has seen 99,000 visits to southaustralia.com from NSW – a 199% increase on the previous 14 days,” South Australia Premier Steven Marshall said in a statement.

“In the week the borders opened, we set a new all-time record for NSW organic search traffic to the website, with the 12,000 organic search visits being more than three times the typical week, and almost double the previous record set in mid-September last year.”

 

The premier added that in the 36 hours after opening the border to NSW, searches for South Australia on travel website Expedia from NSW jumped 160% and Qantas and Jetstar reported 20,000 seat sales.

Image by Andy Leung from Pixabay