$7.9 million campaign to promote Western Australian Tourism

Western Australian Tourism Minister Liz Constable has launched a $7.9 million multi-media marketing campaign that aims to rejuvenate the domestic tourism market.

The campaign is a partnership between the Western Australia Government and the tourism industry and features cinema, press, digital and in-flight advertising with a potential audience reach in excess of five million people.

Dr Constable said the campaign targeted primarily the key markets of Perth, Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne and included co-operative advertising with a range of airlines and travel wholesalers, stating "this campaign is timely as the very strong Australian dollar and availability of cheap international airfares continue to impact on the domestic tourism market.

"Across Australia, domestic tourism has been in steady decline for the past decade and this campaign is aimed at helping to address that decline by marketing Western Australia to potential visitors from interstate as well as encouraging West Australians to holiday at home.

"(The) campaign launch features the first public screening of a series of 60-second cinema advertisements.

"Cinema advertising provides good targeted audience promotion - last year, Australians made 90 million trips to the movies and spent a record $1 billion at the box office.

"The ads will also be shown on Qantas in-flight entertainment, with a potential audience reach of almost a million passengers a month."

The Minister said the campaign drew heavily on the imagery and passenger experiences of the very successful Extraordinary Taxi Ride, adding "every stage of the taxi ride was captured by video cameras, still photographers, blogs and diaries, creating a comprehensive library of material for the campaign.

"Shot in documentary style and narrated by Taxi Ride passengers, they focus on many of WA's extraordinary experiences, such as the Karijini National Park, the Bungle Bungle Range in Purnululu National Park, swimming with the whale sharks at Ningaloo Reef, the Valley of the Giants Tree Top Walk and the Antony Gormley Statues at Lake Ballard."

Dr Constable said the suite of advertisements would expand in 2011 to include Perth and Margaret River.

The campaign starts today (14th October) and runs through to June next year.

The first five 60-second advertisements can be viewed at www.westernaustralia.com/experience_extraordinary

Image shows swimming with whale sharks at Ningaloo Reef.

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