What People REALLY Look at in Australian Tourism

Sydney people like the look of the Blue Mountains.

Over the last 6 months, we’ve released nearly 420,000 PleaseTakeMeTo.com DVD-ROMs into the market and have tracked the usage of tens of thousands of them. That represents a very substantial survey into the unaided awareness of destinations among Australians, and their level of interest. These results have been compiled into a brief but interesting report recently released to the Travel industry (link to report below).

We’re able to track exactly what people using the DVD-ROM are looking at (provided they are on line). Our product features all 68 tourism regions of Australia equally. Each has an opening video and each has a number of locations within the region to click on and view more media and information. It’s designed to let people explore for themselves. What they view is entirely unprompted.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, most of us tend to look first at home. Where we live. While most of us probably aren’t going to play tourist at home, it’s always interesting to see what someone else has to say about where we live. Also, by looking at what’s been shown and said about a place you know, you can gauge how good the tool is likely to be at showing you places you don’t.

Overall, people who used the DVD-ROM used it extensively - and continue to do so. They spend an average of just over 20 minutes at a time viewing it, looking at many locations per session. What they look it is where it gets interesting.

In the main, that’s not the unusual and out of the way places, it’s those that most of us already have some appreciation of. Sydneysiders are a little more outward looking than Tasmanians, who tended to look a lot at Tasmania before venturing further afield, but both Sydney people and Tasmanians looked more at better known destinations.

While Sydneysiders looked a lot at the Sydney region, they chose the Blue Mountains National Park (quite close to home but still a tourist destination) Uluru, Melbourne and Adelaide as some of their most favoured locations. Tasmanians looked first at Tasmanian regions, then Melbourne, then other Tasmanian locations. Whether that’s more ‘looking at home’ or a desire to do more exploring close to home, we can’t be sure, but we continue to gather data and improve our understanding of what the market looks at - unprompted.

While the information we have collected is purely quantitative, some conclusions can be drawn. The most significant of those would appear to be that it takes a long time and a lot of money over a long period to establish awareness of and interest in a location as a tourist destination. For well known destinations, maintaining and improving that awareness is an ongoing task. For lesser know destinations, the task is substantial and requires not just money, but innovation and long term commitment.

Destinations with already high profiles attracted more visitors (Far North Queensland pictured).

In ranked order, the locations visited were:

Sydney Distribution:

Most Popular Regions
Sydney
Tropical North Qld
Gold Coast
Australia’s North West
North Coast NSW
Tasmania’s South
Whitsundays
South Coast NSW
Northern Tasmania
Cradle Coast

Most Popular Locations
Blue Mountains National Park
Uluru
Melbourne City
Adelaide City
Hawkesbury
Cairns
Broome
Port Douglas
Bondi Beach
Manly

Tassie Distribution:

Most Popular Regions
Tasmania’s South
Northern Tasmania
Cradle Coast
Gold Coast
Tropical Notrth Queensland
Sunshine Coast
Melbourne
Whitsundays
Perth
Darwin & Surrounds

Most Popular Locations
Melbourne City
Bruny Island
Mt Wellington
Cockle Creek
Hobart
Richmond (Tasmanias South)
Strahan
Bay of Fires
Tasman Peninsula
Dunalley

We’ll continue to collect data and continue to share it with you, as well as our thoughts as to the implications.

Distribution Report