Tourism Tasmania Update – It’s Not Just About Capacity, But Getting That Capacity In The Right Markets
Tourism Tasmania director aviation & access development Hans van Pelt highlights how a collaborative approach is key to developing enhanced connectivity. He looks at how domestic and international demand into Tasmania is growing and how it is not just about getting new capacity into the island state, but ensuring that capacity is being delivered in the right markets with regular frequencies and onward codeshare and interline connectivity.
Transcript
Hans van PeltFundamentally, it's the destination itself. People are discovering that there's so much to see, so much to do. It's a great drive location, so you can fly into Hobart and Launceston, Bernie and Davenport. Grab a rental car, go around, it's really about focusing on the destination. We have a very strong visitor economy strategy. It's around demand generation and conversion and working with partners. We have an access strategy for the island, which is to match to our targets and overall growth. And some of the things we want to do around seasonality and really increasing our yields and our dispersals.
It's also about product experience, product investment, product development. New hotels, new tourism attractions, and that customer experience and we're growing probably around 6 % compound which has been great. We've got some targets for that. There are some challenges around that too. But it's really about promoting the destination and about promoting access to the destination, and particularly working with the carriers. So we've been very much involved industry and involved our airports in this strategy. And it's starting to pay off.
It's a mix of both, and it's really us focusing on core target markets. So obviously we've got the east coast and we're slowly now expanding with capacity that's being added in by the airlines. So we now have South Australian flights. Virgin has just launched per flights in to Hobart which is great, that gives us extra impotence to go in to those markets on a much stronger basis.
We've also seen a lot of international growth. So very much the premium destination. And international growth is now very, very quick for us. It's the fastest growing state in the country and there's 1.28 million visitors. And there's 300,000 international visitors now. So we've got a nice mix and some great source markets to keep working on.
You've got to be very careful that you know what you're doing. So it's very much around quality, it's very much around premium. We're now starting to see some new hotels but as a government we're also working to make sure that the existing product is able to be upgraded. And it's around working promotions, and a lot of what we do is build around itineraries and giving people a reason to come to Tasmania and helping them with the research. And that's probably been the biggest key from a demand generation and a conversion perspective.
It isn't just about capacity, it's about getting the right capacity on the right market. So a lot of it's conversation. A lot of the answers is around frequency. The more frequency we have from the main hubs, the better we can promote international for example. Because we've got great connectivity. There's coach chairs on the domestic product in to Tasmania now with the key lines, partners for both airlines groups. That gives you the ability go further and to create Tasmania as an in destination. You know beyond [inaudible 00:02:58].
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