Latest / 360 with Katie Woolf / Tourism NT's Tony Quarmby explains a new push to get tourists to the Territory during the build up

Transcript

Tourism NT's Tony Quarmby explains a new push to get tourists to the Territory during the build up · 360 with Katie Woolf

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: We do know that new research has been commissioned by
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Tourism NT and it's found that almost nine in ten
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Australians feel that their ability to enjoy a summer has
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: been impacted over the past three years due to bushfires, floods,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: La Nina or COVID nineteen. Now it's prompted the tourism
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: body to launch a summer holiday campaign in a bid
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: to attract more tourists to the Northern Territory.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Now Tony Corby joins.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Me on the line to tell us a little bit
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: more about these findings. He is indeed the executive director
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: of Marketing for Tourism NT.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Good morning to you, Tony.
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: Morning, Katie, how are you?
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Really good?
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Tony talked me through these findings and I think they've
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: been linked to the Bureau of Meteorology predictions as well,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: haven't they.
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: They have, Yes, So we did some research to back
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: up our hypothesis on the new campaign that we were planning.
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: And what this research showed us that we knew anecdotally
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: that people's summer holidays over the last three years have
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: been interrupted from the bush buyers, floods, the weather Lanina.
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: So that's all the rain on the eastern and southern coast,
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: and of course COVID nineteen, so we knew that what
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: we wanted to find is how much demand could we
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: drive this summer, and we found that sixty five percent
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: of people decided against taking a summer holiday in the
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: last three years, and then almost half of the country
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: are planning to take our summer holiday this year. The
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: problem for us is we need to fill a hole
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: in our visitation that will exist late September into October,
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: because they're doing really well at the moment where we're
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: packed in most of the locations across the territory. Become
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: sort of October November, there's a big cliff in visitation,
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: which usually international visitors would kind of mitigate, but we're
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: not expecting them back for another twelve to eighteen months
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: to fill that with domestic businesses to keep businesses in operations.
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: So what we're going to do is change the timing
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: of summer for those southern and eastern states. And this
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: is the bit that's based on the Bureau of Meteorology
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: findings that have been released recently where they're saying that
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: Lanina is fifty percent chance of continuing into this year
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: which means more rain on the East and Southern states
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: as well as there's a fifty percent chance of a
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: negative Indian Ocean dipoles, which is further predicted rainfall past
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: a normal winter for the other states. That gives us
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: an opportunity to try and attract those Southern states and
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: these coast to the NT over October November if we
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: can convince them to take an early summer holiday, so
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: instead of them waiting for descent, which they would normally
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: do this summer holiday, our summer starts early here.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: So try and get them early.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: I guess you know, for some of us locals listening,
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: they might be thinking, oh, it's going to be a
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: very hot summer for them, Tony.
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: Yes, it's just hotter than their YouTube. But like I
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: keep telling people, people travel to Bali, Thailand, Singapore, all
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: of those countries during the summer, We're no different in temperature.
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: It's a tropical change. As long as they dress accordingly,
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: as long as they stay out of the sun in
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: the heat of the day into the air conditioning, then
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: they'll have a terrific time. We love the summer, We
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: love the storms, we love the you know, the waterfalls,
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: flowing bill of bongs topped up with the wildlife being attracted.
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: So why wouldn't the Southern States and Eastern States.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: And so Tony, what's the plan in terms of how
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: do we market that to the other states and to
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: other how do we market the fact that, you know,
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: yeah it's warm, but it's warm in Balley and Singapore
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: and other locations as well. But these are all the
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: wonderful things that you will get to say.
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: It's all about education. It's all about busting the myths
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: that we don't have anywhere that's you know, cool enough.
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: I mean in the center, you've got loads of rock
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: holes and waterways that you can swim in with great
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: iconic locations and backdrops, so you don't have to, you know,
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: brave the heat twenty four to seven. It's a case
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: of making sure that you've got air conditioning tour buses,
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: you've got your accommodation or booked with the swimming pools,
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: you know, and making sure that you prepare for the
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: weather so you wear light clothes, making sure that you're
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: not out during the eleven till about two downtown in
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: the center. So it's all about education really.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it does sound you know, Look, it does sounds
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: it will be a good thing, killie for our tourism operators.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: As you pointed out that you know, it is at
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: that lower time, So it is certainly a time when
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: we're hoping that we'll get plenty of people here if
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: we can, if we can really get stuck.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: Into this marketing.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: Is there going to be sort of holiday packages and
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: flights and things like that to go in conjunction with this,
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: you know, with this marketing, Yeah, there is.
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: I mean, I think everybody knows how high the prices are,
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: both for tourists and locals. I mean, the flight price
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: is hugely inflated at the moment. The accommodation is really high,
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: and that's because of the demand that's been generated. So
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: what we're doing during the late September, October, November into
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: the summer period, we're partnering with with airlines such as
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: Virgin webjat what if, Trevello Holidays of Australia to provider
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: all those sort of companies so when the prices do
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: come down, those companies can advertise the deals get people
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: to book over those times of the year when prices
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: are a lot cheaper and deals are available.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: Now, what about you know, when it comes to who
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: we're sort of targeting. I know that you mentioned obviously
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: into state visitors, but is it about sort of targeting
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: some groups here like family members or of people that
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: already live here, so you know, our interstate family or
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: gray nomads or is it just anybody and everybody tiny.
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: Well, we'd love everybody and anybody, but obviously we have
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: we have target markets that do tend to travel more
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: consistently here, so very much over fifties is a big
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: market for the territory. What we have seen over the
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: COVID years though, is families. A lot of families are
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: traveling to the NT to get the culture, the education
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: of the outback lifestyle, the top end lifestyle, while international
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: destinations are off the radar for them. So we've seen
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: uptake of families as well as the drive market. There's
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: a huge spike in caravan and camping sales, of four
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: wheel drive sales, and people have spent you know, thousands
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: of dollars on these vehicles and they want to get
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: use out of it, so they're traveling up into the
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: NT as well, and we hope that will continue on
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: into the near future.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: And Tony you mentioned there.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: You know, there obviously a lot of ossies at the
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: moment sort of experiencing or in the you know, in
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: the high season experiencing difficulties I suppose when it comes
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: to some of those flights. But there is going to
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: be some detail or some deals as well with the
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: with flying into the territory.
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, obviously we're putting deals in market for travel
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: from late September onwards. We're not trying to attract further
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: visitation while we're already busy. But what we're not trying
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: to do, We're not saying it directly, is to avoid
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: school holidays. But I think everybody's learned now that while
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: there's workforce issue using especially around the airlines and airports,
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: there is going to be further chaos during school holidays
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: and people might want to think about traveling at alternate times,
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: and that's where we can offer, you know, holidays with
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: great weather almost guaranteed, you know, outside of those will
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: peak busy and potentially chaotic times.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: Well, Tiny Quimby, it is wonderful to speak to you
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: this morning. I reckon it's going to be interesting. I'll
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: be fascinated to see whether we do see a bit
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: of a peak in terms of, you know, the way
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: that we market ourselves, because I think you're right. You know,
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: other locations are busy the whole time, the likes of
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: Bali and Singapore and others. So whether we can be
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: the same, it'd be wonderful. It will be wonderful if
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: we're able to do that.
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: That's the aim. Hope you.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: Oh, good on you, Tony. I appreciate your time this morning.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: Thanks Katie,