Best of the Tourism Industry get traditional media exposure through digital innovation

The Queensland tourism industry’s ‘night of nights’ is about to get a whole lot more exposure with a step-change in how the awards are promoted.

The Queensland Tourism Awards are due to take place on Friday, November 16, and this year, thanks to new Silver sponsor Tourism Tribe, an innovative three-pronged approach will be used for promotional activity using digital, social and traditional media.

Tourism Tribe is an online community of more than 1,600 tourism businesses around the world and is a leader in digital technology and coaching for the tourism industry.

As part of the Silver sponsorship agreement, Tourism Tribe has partnered with Queensland Tourism Industry Council (QTIC), who hosts the awards, to deliver an even bigger and better promotional program than in previous years, to increase online and offline exposure for entrants and winners.

Tourism Tribe has started capturing the stories of all entrants – with 20 stories already captured at the time of writing – and will generate their unique stories for them using Tourism Tribe’s own digital storytelling tool. The tool quickly and easily captures the essence behind each business and creates a story from the information entered into the template.

The stories are published on Tourism Tribe’s website and social media channels, increasing online exposure for entrants, and the tool also produces a ready-to-go media release, which is distributed to traditional media on the entrant’s behalf.

Instagram stories and other social media channels are also being utilised to maximize exposure in the lead-up to, and during, the event, resulting in the combined exposure of web, social and traditional media, all working together.

“Our story-telling tool is unique, as far as we know, and will enable entrants to share the story behind their business with the world, for free,” Tourism Tribe’s CEO Liz Ward said.

“It is a way to shine the spotlight on their business, and the fact it is published almost immediately means they can instantly share it to their channels and keep the excitement going. The Tourism Tribe website is also very highly ranked by Google, so it will be picked up in searches.

“QTA entrants will also be emailed an ‘instant’ media release about their business and their story, which they can share with their media channels and, in another first, the media release will automatically be emailed to entrants’ local media and Regional Tourism Organisation, on their behalf.

“Since we started collecting entrants’ stories, we have already heard back that Crystal Caves, in Atherton, submitted their story and, just one hour later, Cairns radio contacted them for an interview, having received the automatic media release. The Country House at Hunchy’s story was also published in the Sunshine Coast Daily Weekend Magazine (see screenshot). This is exactly what our vision was for the digital storytelling tool, so we are already hitting our objectives.”

QTIC CEO Daniel Gschwind said it was very exciting to be partnering with silver sponsor Tourism Tribe on the social media campaign for this year’s QTAs.

“We have enjoyed a long and successful relationship with Tourism Tribe, whose expertise in digital technologies, tools and training for tourism businesses is almost unrivalled in Australia,” he said.

“Not only have they been tireless innovators in the industry,  but they also play a proactive and important role in many of our programs including our Young Professionals Mentoring Program. We are very pleased to have them on board as a Silver awards sponsor this year.

“We are excited about this new and different online campaign, which will really increase exposure for the awards, the entrants and the winners, and will build on the already excellent track record QTIC has for promoting the awards online, pre, during and post event.”

For more information about the awards visit https://www.qtic.com.au/industry-development/qta/

For more information about Tourism Tribe’s story-telling tool and to build your story, visit https://www.tourismtribe.com/story-qta/