Latest / 360 with Katie Woolf / Katie Woolf spoke with Tourism NT Executive General Manager of Marketing Tony Quarmby

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Katie Woolf spoke with Tourism NT Executive General Manager of Marketing Tony Quarmby · 360 with Katie Woolf

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Three sixty with Katie Wolf. Join the conversation with Katie Wolf.
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  Speaker 1: You are our eyes and ears in the territory Mixed
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  Speaker 1: one oh four point nine.
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  Speaker 2: Tourism NT have launched a domestic marketing campaign to drive
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  Speaker 2: home a message of deliver well driving to driving holiday makers.
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  Speaker 2: Is what I'm trying to say, and it is it's
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  Speaker 2: nothing like your normal road trip. Now joining us on
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  Speaker 2: the line to tell us a little bit more about
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  Speaker 2: this campaign. Tourism NT Executive General Manager of Marketing Tony Quornby,
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  Speaker 2: Good morning to you.
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  Speaker 3: Tony, morning, Katie.
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  Speaker 1: How are you very well? We're just saying how glorious
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  Speaker 1: the weather is.
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  Speaker 3: It was great. It was so nice sitting on the
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  Speaker 3: balcony yesterday and just having a wine looking out of
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  Speaker 3: the clear blue sky and not being too sweaty.
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  Speaker 2: That's right, well on Tony, perfect time to have a
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  Speaker 2: bit of a driving holiday.
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  Speaker 1: And that's exactly what Tourism is promoting.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's exactly it. It's the time where we hope
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  Speaker 3: to encourage many Australians to jump in their cars, their
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  Speaker 3: camper vans, their caravan and come on up and enjoy
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  Speaker 3: the weather that we just experienced.
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  Speaker 2: And Tony how are you? How are you doing this?
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  Speaker 2: I know it is obviously a new campaign. It's really
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  Speaker 2: to drive home a message to those driving holiday makers
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  Speaker 2: that it's nothing like your normal road trip.
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  Speaker 1: How are you promoting this?
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  Speaker 3: Well, this is an additional campaign onto our Seat Different
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  Speaker 3: campaign which we launched Lake February. So that campaign was
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  Speaker 3: based on promoting different in every sense, which is the
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  Speaker 3: tourism brand, and it really focuses on everything that's different
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  Speaker 3: about the territory. So the Drive campaign fits nicely onto
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  Speaker 3: that by talking about that's nothing like a normal drive
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  Speaker 3: road trip. But then focus is specifically on a drive
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  Speaker 3: audience with specific drive content and of course Holiday Drive
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  Speaker 3: deals with some of our core driving partners.
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  Speaker 2: And who is it aimed at? Is there a specific
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  Speaker 2: age group or is it just everybody?
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  Speaker 3: Well, you could say it is everyone. We have a
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  Speaker 3: specific target around our main long drive travelers, which is
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  Speaker 3: the fifty plus market. They come obviously and stay for
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  Speaker 3: quite a while a lot of the times, but we
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  Speaker 3: also have a secondary audience which is a fly drive market,
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  Speaker 3: so they skew sort of a younger so twenty five
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  Speaker 3: to sort of forty to forty five, which does encapsulate
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  Speaker 3: quite quite a broad market. We have also seen an
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  Speaker 3: uptake in the last year over over this COVID period
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  Speaker 3: where families are taking a lot more interest in potentially
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  Speaker 3: traveling to the territory more than they had done pre COVID.
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  Speaker 3: So that's a good sign and also hopefully there'll be
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  Speaker 3: one that will orientake towards a caravan or a can
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  Speaker 3: for flying in and hiring a car and traveling with
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  Speaker 3: their family.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. I've actually seen quite a few friends over the
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  Speaker 2: school holiday period driving around the Northern Territory going down
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  Speaker 2: or going to Central Australia and heading to Catherine and
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  Speaker 2: the like and taking the family along.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it can be a lot more affordable for families
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  Speaker 3: to hire a car here rather than drive from their
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  Speaker 3: residence or for example, take a tour, which may have
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  Speaker 3: if you've got a family of four or five, you're
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  Speaker 3: four or five people to pay for on the tour,
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  Speaker 3: whereas you could bundle them all into one, hire a
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  Speaker 3: car and do your own self made tour that way.
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  Speaker 1: And Tony, how lucrative is this drive market.
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  Speaker 3: It's very lucrative. We have about fifty three percent of
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  Speaker 3: visitation in a normal year from a drive market, and
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  Speaker 3: that's both a long drive and that also fly drive,
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  Speaker 3: so people are flying in picking a higher car. So
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  Speaker 3: you know, over fifty percent of a market is a
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  Speaker 3: very large chunk of tourism.
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  Speaker 2: And do you find that that those who do drive
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  Speaker 2: to the territory, do they generally stay here for a
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  Speaker 2: little bit longer or what's the period of time that
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  Speaker 2: they're most likely to stay in the territory.
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  Speaker 3: They do stay slightly longer, but most of all they disperse.
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  Speaker 3: They get out into our regions and really visit all
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  Speaker 3: the different places around the territory, spreading that tourism dollar
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  Speaker 3: much further. So is this to win win? They stay
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  Speaker 3: longer and they spread their money further across the anti economy.
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  Speaker 1: And is that what it's all about?
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  Speaker 2: Really trying to not only get people to our major
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  Speaker 2: town centers, but to get them out and about to
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  Speaker 2: some of those other wonderful locations.
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  Speaker 3: It's extremely important to get them to those locations. The
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  Speaker 3: regional area's been doing it especially hard over COVID because
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  Speaker 3: there's been less tourists here to actually visit them, so
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  Speaker 3: they're really struggling. We need to drive mar deliver a
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  Speaker 3: business to them so they can stay in business and
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  Speaker 3: then when we do rebound, be there for when the
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  Speaker 3: main tourism heard comes along that includes both domestic and
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  Speaker 3: international tourists. If they go out of business, we don't
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  Speaker 3: have much to offer and we attract less overall.
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  Speaker 2: Tony, can I ask we know that Australia is opening
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  Speaker 2: up to New Zealand today the travel bubble. Is this
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  Speaker 2: going to have much of an impact for us here
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  Speaker 2: in the territory.
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  Speaker 3: It will have an impact. It won't be as large
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  Speaker 3: as some of the Eastern States as that's predominantly where
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  Speaker 3: the Kiwis travel too. We get about on a normal
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  Speaker 3: year about fourteen thousand New Zealanders that come to the territory,
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  Speaker 3: so it's not a huge amount, but considering they can't
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  Speaker 3: travel anywhere else, we have the potential of growing that
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  Speaker 3: number in the next few months. Hopefully. We also want
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  Speaker 3: to try and encourage New Zealand workers as well, those
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  Speaker 3: you know, probably a little younger, have a bit more
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  Speaker 3: time on the hands. Why not come up for the
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  Speaker 3: great weather we're going to be having and work in
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  Speaker 3: tourism and hospitality while here. So there's kind of a
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  Speaker 3: two markets that would love to be able to attract
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  Speaker 3: from that New Zealand bubble.
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  Speaker 2: Well, and I know when you talk about those workers,
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  Speaker 2: it would certainly be greatly you know, to be something
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  Speaker 2: that our industry would greatly appreciate. We spoke quite extensively
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  Speaker 2: about that on Friday with Hospitality and also with Tourism
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  Speaker 2: Top End and Tourism Central Australia. What work is sort
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  Speaker 2: of happening in that space to try to grow those numbers.
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  Speaker 3: Well, we're definitely having a lot of conversations with the
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  Speaker 3: organizations you've just mentioned, but across the country as well.
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  Speaker 3: This isn't a problem just for the territory. This is
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  Speaker 3: a problem nationwide. It was a huge shortage of tourism
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  Speaker 3: and hospitality workers. So we're working with the federal counterparts.
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  Speaker 3: We're working very much with Tourism Hospitality and and of
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  Speaker 3: course Tourism Central Australian Tourism Top End to really find
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  Speaker 3: a solution to this problem. But we have to do
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  Speaker 3: it quite quickly because obviously our peak season is coming up.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely, and hopefully we're going to have an absolutely cracking
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  Speaker 2: dry season.
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  Speaker 3: Yep, cracking dry season with a great dry season as well.
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  Speaker 2: Our good stuff Tony quornby Tourism NT and It's always
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  Speaker 2: good to catch up with you. We really appreciate your
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  Speaker 2: time this morning, you too, Thank you.
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  Speaker 1: That is a
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  Speaker 2: Tourism NT Executive General Manager of Marketing there Tony Quarnby