Sapphire Coast Tourism (SCT) Update: December 2017

Visitor data confirms tourism is the biggest game in town. Our researcher has analysed the Tourism Research Australia data for FY 17 and the headlines make for great reading;

* In 2016/17 the total direct spend from visitors is estimated at $412m. Our highest on record.

* This expenditure delivers just shy of 5000 jobs to the region - equating to around 40% of the Bega Valley's total jobs (12,866) according to IDcommunuty data for YE16.

All small variations aside there is no argument tourism is the engine that powers our economy. The old adage 'tourism is everybody's business' could be appropriately tweaked to 'tourism is everything'.

Back to visitors... we were very pleased to hear that two groups of cruise travellers have already returned to explore more after visiting in 2016/17. It is a golden opportunity having visitors floating into Eden for a taster of the region ... the trick is getting a large number of them back and our key focus is to do just that.

Thanks to everyone for their efforts in powering our economy and best wishes for a safe and prosperous silly season.

Cheers,
Team @ Sapphire Coast Tourism

In this issue...
* Networking event #3 final call
* Off Peak campaign delivers great ROI
* Australian Bowls Championships shine a light on Merimbula
* PR report
* Digital update including one visit worth 597k
* Visitor numbers
* International Marketing Update
* Cruise News including return visitors
* Visitor data for YE17
* News from DNSW

Final call for December 7 industry networking event.

Join the Sapphire Coast Tourism team and industry colleagues for a night of networking and partner updates. Learn about some of the great experiences and initiatives on offer for our visitors and the economy, direct from the source.

This time around we will meet at the stunning and recently re-opened Tathra Hotel, following a huge make-over.

REGISTER NOW HERE!

The evening will include short presentations from the following tourism partners.

▪	Tathra Hotel

▪	Camel Rock Brewery, Wallaga Lake

▪	Sapphire Coast Marine Discovery Centre

▪	Eastwood's Deli and Cooking School

▪	Sapphire Coast Turf Club

▪	Mudd Monsters Kameruka

▪	Merimbula Tourism

▪	Light to Light Camps

▪	Destination Southern NSW and more...

As usual there will be plenty of time for networking and pre-season celebrations.

Food and beverage will be available for purchase.

REGISTER NOW HERE!

'Off Peak Summer' promotion driving plenty of interest

The 2017 'Off Peak' Summer campaign has seen 31 businesses collaborate in a digital campaign to drive visitation during the pre-Christmas December period.

Some key 2017 campaign results so far;
* Leads to campaign participants: 1864
* Unique clicks to campaign content: 8557
Great results and ROI with social media results to be calculated in early December.

Australian Bowls Championship at Club Sapphire goes social

Live and archived streaming of the Australian Championships at Club Sapphire have been featuring on the Bowls Australia Facebook page.

Thousands of viewers are watching the action and enjoying the commentary spruiking the great experiences of Merimbula.

Image from feature story in Singapore prestige magazine 'the world is your oyster '

PR wins

Two local oyster farmers have graced the pages of the most elite magazines in Singapore & India thanks to our good friends at Tourism Australia & Destination NSW.

Singapore's Prestige Magazine, which hails as "society's luxury authority" on fashion, travel, culture and food, featured Brett Weingarth (Captain Sponge's Magical Oyster tours) and Shane Buckley (Wapengo Rocks). Sponge jokes start now! Read it, share it.

Our oyster story was also shared with India's elite via Forbes India magazine. Again our hero's were Sponge & Buckley, with writer Mathew Pramod also sparing a few lines for Old Tom & Eden Killer Whale Museum, Bermagui Blue Pool & Merimbula.
Read it, share it.

Our rockstar Oysters also had travel writer John Rozentals visiting on behalf of DNSW. John's story included Wheelers Restaurant, Eden's Crown & Anchor B&B, Sprout Cafe, Eden Smokehouse & EKWM.
The original story was here and was shared through-out the Fairfax network.

Big4 Wallaga Lake & Discovery Parks Pambula Beach were featured by Global Travel Media's 10 camping ideas for spring that will make you want to pitch your tent now

Traveller: Where to see whales in Australia

Visit NSW: Unspoilt South Coast Photo Album

Coming up:
Canberra Weekly article following Light2Light Coastal Walks famil.

Qantas Spirit Magazine - Sapphire Coast feature with visits to restaurants, farm gates & national parks.

Sydney to Melbourne Touring Route is hosting European vlogger Arne Down Under this Christmas. Exclusive travel partners Aussie Tours, also partner with Qantas Airlines.

NZ Herald & Dish Magazine to promote the Eden Whale Festival in 2018.

Tourism Australia Video of Sapphire Coast

Tourism Australia video of the Sapphire Coast, featuring @itsworthashot

Digital Update

Instagrammers Lauren Bath and Matt Donovan stayed with us for 5 nights recently as part of the Unspoilt South Coast campaign.

From 20 Instagram posts, the pair had over 1million impressions, reached 831k people, with 90k likes, 2300 comments with a total of 93k engagements. Through 51 Instagram Stories, they reached over 300k people.

We gained over 200 followers during their visit, which grew to around 2000 when Tourism Australia amplified their content, in particular this video of Matt's images. which would make for a great share this summer.

TA shared their stats with us:
Facebook
- 1.5m people reached.
- 432k video views.
- 21k reactions, comments & shares.
- 38k link clicks (@sapphirecoastnsw was tagged so some of these came to us).

Instagram post
- 857k engagement
- 1m impressions
- 402 comments

Instagram story
- 1.26 Impressions
- 197k reach
- 791 Clicks to article (Sapphire Coast content on TA)

Using one industry measure of 25c per impression, the estimated media value of this famil, on Lauren & Matt's channels alone, is $597k.

During the festive season people turn to their News Feed for gift ideas.of global surveyed shoppers say that Facebook is influential in their festive season shopping.1

Social Media Tips

Online shopping - the Christmas rush

Facebook's new Holiday Hub states that an average of 62% of surveyed people do most of their festive season shopping in December, and 46% keep shopping through January.

Mobile is playing a big role in both researching and buying gifts, and last year more purchases were made on mobile, than on desktop.

Here's some help on creating a Facebook and Instagram ads for Christmas.

Don't want to post to social during your busiest period?

Tough, you'll still need to. But at least we can help make it quicker.

Hootsuite has a free account that allows you to write posts for Instagram & Facebook from the comfort of your desktop, and either save, or schedule to publish in the morning or evening.

You'll get a notification on your phone when it's time to publish to Instagram, and you just have to follow the easy prompts. To share from Insta straight to Facebook, you just have to link the two accounts in your Instagram settings. Two posts in one is possible!

For Facebook, creating posts for later is even easier. Here's are the steps.

Grow your audience over summer

Our web visits and social engagements skyrocket over summer and we like to remember who they are so we can reach out to them in the quieter months and ask or inspire them to come back.

Facebook for Business (Ads Manager) allows you to create audiences based on who has engaged with your profile. Once you have a free business account, you can even get help from a real person!

If you want to be able to reach people who have visited your website you, or your developer, will need to implement some code on your website, such as Google Analytics & the Facebook Pixel. Contact the SCT office if your eyes are glazing over and need some help.

Visitor data estimates year ending June 2017

Visitor Data to Sapphire Coast (Bega Valley Shire) is an independent report prepared by Peter Valerio, Tourism Research Solutions.

Domestic Overnight Visitors
* Domestic overnight visitor volume for the year ending June 2017 was 491,000. This represents the best year end June result in the monitor history.

Domestic Nights
*Domestic overnight visitors spent an estimated 1.8 million nights in region during the year ending June 2017.
•The estimated percentage change of -6.5% compared to the same period last year is negative however not considered statistically significant.

Day Visitors
• Bega Valley Shire hosted almost 350,000 domestic day visitors in the latest period.
• The percentage change compared to the same period ending last year was +18.3%.
* Most importantly, Bega day visitors have grown despite the broader market decline.

International Visitors
•The international overnight visitor estimate for the year ending June 2017 was 35,500 -a well-above average estimate and a record high.
•The percentage change of +35% compared with the previous period can be considered statistically significant.
•Sapphire Coast market share of the Sub-Region (Shoalhaven & Eurobodalla) was almost 43% , the third consecutive result above 40%.

Return cruise visitors sighted and only the tip of the iceberg

One of SCT's key focus points for cruise is enticing visitors back on a drive holiday.

Industry estimates tout a return visitor rate of around 20/%. So there is big business to be had with over 30,000 passenger and crew visiting this season alone.

So we were very pleased to hear of two confirmed reports of return visitors.

Visitors from QLD returned in their caravan with 2 other couples and enjoyed a Cat Balou cruise and National Park visit. These guys also spread the word via their popular Instagram account.

Another couple, from South Australia also returned to Eden in their caravan to enjoy a few days catching up with experiences they missed on their cruise trip.

Both groups originally saw Eden and Sapphire Coast on a P&O cruise.

The old fella selling up a storm to key international distribution partners at ATEC Meeting Place

International marketing update

Our hard work in partnership with our Visit Canberra friends has seen us included in a self drive ex-Canberra holiday as part of a Singapore Airlines Hong Kong promotion in partnership with Tourism Australia.

You can visit the itinerary here. There is enough in english to give you the flavour.

This adds to other packages with Singapore's biggest agent Chan Bros, who met with SCT and some of our operators on recent Visit Canberra missions.

Meeting Place 2017
SCT again attended ATEC Meeting place as part of the international industry development program. The flagship industry event included 22 one on one appointments with inbound tour operators and other key distribution partners, invaluable networking events and a conference program.

Maharla Clark in Sydney volunteering during the Port Authority trip in early October.

Cruise News

Port Authority sponsors Shuttle Buses for Eden
Through support from Port Authority of NSW and Sapphire Coast Bus Lines, SCT are now able to provide two shuttle buses per cruise ship for the next 2 cruise seasons. Providing complimentary shuttle buses for cruise passengers helps build our port's reputation and ensures passengers see more of Eden, thereby enticing them to come back!

First 2 ships of the Season!
In November, Eden saw the arrival of the first 2 ships of the 2017/18 cruise season with Pacific Eden and Noordam. Unfortunately Pacific Eden couldn't run tenders due to the high swell however the Noordam's visit was one of our best!
Approximately 98% of passengers disembarked and we had record numbers out on tour around the Sapphire Coast and enjoying Eden courtesy of the free Shuttle Buses.

Cruise Eden Meet & Greet student lands a job in Sydney!
After joining us on a Port Authority of NSW development trip to Sydney in early October, Maharla Clark scored an interview and was then employed by Intercruises!! Maharla will welcome cruise passengers at the Overseas Passenger Terminal and White Bay Cruise Terminal in Sydney.
Maharla has been a Cruise Eden Meet & Greet student through Bega TAFE for years and was rewarded with the opportunity to attend the Sydney personal development trip in October. We're proud of Maharla's efforts and excited to see Cruise Eden work experience lead to job success.

News from Destination NSW

NSW regional conferencing development grants pilot program

The Regional Conferencing Development Grants Pilot Program is designed to help stakeholders create exciting new business events for regional NSW, where unique and wonderful attractions can be integrated into compelling event experiences. The Program also aims to bring existing business events to regional NSW, enriching the events with opportunities offered by iconic towns and regions while helping secure successful conferences and events for their future.

Seed funding will be offered between 4 August 2017 and 30 June 2018 (up to a maximum of $100,000) to be matched dollar-for-dollar by local communities, councils, entrepreneurs, associations, professional conference organisers etc. Small-scale infrastructure projects may be permitted but only in the context of creating a new event or attracting an existing event.

Before creating your application, please read through the factsheet.

DNSW webinars assist a range of tourism challenges

Destination NSW have a very useful range of Webinars available for viewing at your leisure.
Topics currently include;

▪	Australian Tourism Data Warehouse (ATDW) Online for Visitor Information Centres

▪	ATDW Online for tourism businesses

▪	Love your listing

▪	Social scenes: Promoting your business on social media

▪	Mobile me: Becoming mobile ready

▪	Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Tips

Follow this link to the Destination NSW webinar page

Previous newsletters

If you want catch up on previous newsletters we have an archive on our industry page here

Must reads and subscribes in 2017

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Visit NSW insights
Tourism Australia News
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Sapphire Coast Tourism Ltd
PO Box 89 Merimbula 2549
02 6495 7031

Media Enquiries
Anthony Osborne
aosborne@sapphirecoast.com.au

Executive Officer
Anthony Osborne
aosborne@sapphirecoast.com.au

Digital and Publicity Coordinator
Sarah Chenhall
schenhall@sapphirecoast.com.au

Industry Coordinator and Cruise Manager
Natalie Godward
natalie@sapphirecoast.com.au