Yarra Ranges Tourism Key Activities CEO Report – July 2014
KEY STRATEGY AREA: INDUSTRY AND STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT
Industry networking
events
Yarra Ranges Council
Partnering Agreement

YVRTA hosted a networking event on 7 July at Oakridge that was attended by
about 100 people. Speakers included Danny Kane (Oakridge) and Suzanne
Halliday.
 Trade Expo – Tuesday 19 August 4-6.30pm York On Lilydale for suppliers and
services to the tourism industry to showcase their products
 Tourism Ball - The Memo Healesville (1920’s theme), Sat 11 October 7.30-11pm
Council supported a new Partnering Agreement with Yarra Ranges Tourism for the
next two years including continued funding for wine tourism and food tourism and
additional funding to attract and support regional tourism events to the area.
Yarra Ranges Tourism would like to acknowledge the support of Yarra Ranges
Council in supporting our organisation and we will be working very hard to ensure
that we can provide the strategic direction and leadership to drive increased visitors
to the region.
Partnership Program
Update
Early Bird offer of a $50 discount for those taking up the Tourism marketing and LTA
membership closed 11 July.
Further work is going into developing our database of local operators to ensure that
we can more effectively get our messages out.
Industry Website
Ongoing updates to this site continue to ensure that it is a useful local resource for
tourism information
Web Performance:
Unique Visits
Page Views
1,357
4435
KEY STRATEGY AREA: DIGITAL
www.yarrarangestourism.com.au
New Digital Platform
Update
Delivering our new website is our top priority. We have been advised by the
company delivering our website that due to issues with delivering the booking
engine, itinerary planner or e-commerce functionality the launch of the site is now
delayed until late August.
We are still updating content for transfer to the new platform and purchasing new
imagery for release in the new platform.
To ensure that we give the new booking engine every chance of success we will
need every operator to either connect to TXA or be a BookEasy Gold member. An
audit of every businesses booking system has now been completed to determine
how easy this transition will be. As a follow up Simon has met with four booking
engine suppliers to negotiate a preferred supplier arrangement to help encourage
local operators to move to a compatible live bookable system. This information is
being included into a user guide for operators that Yarra Ranges Tourism has been
developing to assist operators understand the future of the online booking
environment. This user guide will be released to the industry in the coming weeks.
Social Media
Performance
Primary
Yarra Valley & Dandenong Ranges Facebook 20,540 likes up 956 from June 2014
* Page continues to be the highest liked page of any regional tourism destination in
the State.
Facebook Engagement for June
The following is a snapshot of the direct consumer marketing reach that our
Facebook posts delivered in June:
Total Posts
19
Results - Organic Reach
Results - Paid Reach
Engagement - Likes, Comments & Shares
61566
Engagement - Post Clicks
13312
8892
1800
The above results were achieved through a variety of post types, using images,
videos and various tagging hash tagging strategies.
Social Media
Performance
Secondary
Twitter The Dandenongs 2544 Followers (Increase of 2 from May)
Twitter Yarra_Valley 3046 Followers (Increase of 12 from May)
Instagram Yarra_Valley 289 Followers (Increase of 37 from May)
Instagram Dandenong Ranges 108 Followers (Increase of 12 from May)
Google + Yarra Valley 38 Followers
Google + Dandenong Ranges 18 Followers
Online Video
Production
Twelve 90 Sec online videos have been shot in partnership with the industry and are
in the process of being edited. The second video complete is for Burrinja Course and
is online.
YVRTA have offered to support this project by funding 2-3 more videos of generic
content that can be loaded to all their members’ websites.
Options for Drone video continues to be explored.
Definitions:
Unique visits – refers to the number of distinct individuals requesting pages from
the website during a given period, regardless of how often they visit.
Page views - refers to the total number of views each page of the website receives.
The more page views, the more traffic it is receiving.
Web Statistics for June 2014
Overall traffic is down which appears to reflect the region moving into a period of
off-peak visitation.
Website
Unique Visits
Page Views
Experiencethedandenongs
8,679
32,866
↑ 1,394 from May
↑1,512 from May
Experienceyarravalley
9,958
69,050
↑2,146 from May
↑3,447 from May
Visityarravalley
25,101
74,668
↑4,384 from May
↓5,592 from May
Website performance
compared to other
KEY STRATEGY AREA: MARKETING
School Holiday Social
Media Campaign
Continuing the work to promote to families. A term 2 holidays ideas advertisement
was provided to 451 Schools in Melbourne’s East for inclusion in their end of term
newsletter or websites.
This was followed up with a Facebook campaign – 14 School Holiday Ideas in 14
Days.
Each day at 9am a post was sent to our Facebook followers promoting one specific
idea for parents to consider, a mixture of paid and free opportunities were
promoted. At the time of this report the campaign had achieved the following
results:
Total Posts
12
Results - Organic Reach
41,905
Results - Paid Reach
0
Engagement - Likes, Comments & Shares
773
Engagement - Post Clicks
12,468
Digital campaign
- new website launch
Melbourne Food &
Wine Festival Cross
Promotion
The outcomes of this campaign will be further discussed at the next Families & VFR
Working Group.
Work is underway to scope an appropriate digital marketing campaign to coincide
with the launch of our new website platforms. Quotes are being sourced from
suitable contractors that can support this initiative. The goal of the campaign will be
to increase our website visits, conversion for our industry and also social media
following.
All of the Regional Tourism Organisations met with the Melbourne Food and Wine
Festival team to workshop opportunities for the state to work collectively on
facilitating stronger regional food events in the future. The objective of this working
group is to lever greater use of the Melbourne Food and Wine database (~120,000)
year round to encourage visitation to the regions.
The first opportunity for consideration is “Twinkly Fair” – A Gastronomic Circus
Travelling Across Regional Victoria in 2015, featuring renowned artist Tony Horneker
known for his installations such a the “The Pale Blue Door”. For further information
see: http://tonyhornecker.com/page/about.html for some of his work.
Image Library
Transition of the all of the organisations images to the cloud is nearly complete.
They are now loaded to Flickr that enables all staff to access them remotely and any
contractors we may be working with. This process has been a big project as they are
all now tagged for easy reference.
6 Reasons to Visit
We have successfully been working with Richard Cornish from The Age, who is the
journalist for 6 Reasons to Visit. He produced an article on Belgrave on 21 June
Regional Events
Attraction Strategy
Yarra Ranges Tourism will be undertaking a regional events strategy for the region
that will also specifically consider Marysville (through funding support from
Murrindindi Council and Marysville Surrounds Tourism & Events Program). This will
provide direction and guidelines on how to best support regional tourism events
with the new funding provided annually by Yarra Ranges Council for sponsorship of
regional events. A project brief has been finalised and quotes are being sought from
external consultant to undertake the work.
A partnership opportunity is being explored with Rob Waddell, a landscape gardener
from Lilydale who is entering the Show Garden competition in the Melbourne
International Flower and Garden Show in March 2015. He is looking to landscape a
garden inspired by the Yarra Valley. Yarra Ranges Tourism will be looking at ways to
lever our garden Itineraries for the region in conjunction with this stand, running a
competition and encourage new sing ups top our consumer database.
The Victorian Government hosted 26 Victorian operators to meet with a total of 228
wholesale and retail agents in Singapore and Malaysia. 130 companies joined the
Super Mission from all sectors including education, innovation, tourism and
agriculture. The tourism sector focus was on new products as these two markets
are very familiar with Victorian product and are looking for new products to entice
the predominantly FIT markets. Yarra Ranges Tourism promoted new products
suitable for the Asian market including: Coombe – The Melba Estate opening end
July, Alowyn Gardens opening daily from Sept, Bus tours to Lake Mountain with Café
Bus for snow play in winter, Gateway Estate strawberry picking all year round,
Australian Wine Tour Company are offering 2 day / 1 night coach tours overnighting
at Balgownie and the Platypus show at Healesville Sanctuary. A detailed digital
Product Manual was developed to showcase products.
In each market a media event was held showcasing Victoria’s arts and culture. Yarra
Valley gained additional exposure by having chocolatier Remco Brigou from Yarra
Valley Chocolaterie and Ice Creamery join the mission and undertake chocolate
master classes for the media as well as interviews.
Yarra Ranges Tourism promoted a new Farmgate Itinerary for this market which
included an orchard tour and tasting at Rayners Orchard, catching your own trout at
Buxton Trout Farm and cooking it for lunch, wine tasting, visit to the Yarra Valley
Chocolaterie & Ice Creamery followed by picking your own strawberries at Gateway
Estate.
Matt Noble, Australian Wine Tour Company will be attending under the Yarra Valley
and Dandenong Ranges banner and will be representing three other operators:
Healesville Sanctuary, Puffing Billy and Balgownie Estate. Yarra Ranges Tourism will
develop a product manual and offer suggested itineraries, provide images and copy
to assist the European wholesalers package the region.
Melbourne
International Flower
and Garden Show –
Promotional
Opportunity
Tourism Victoria
Singapore and
Malaysia Super mission
16-20 June
Attending:
Yarra Ranges Tourism
Rayners Orchard
Buxton Trout Farm
Aust Wine Tour Co
Café Bus
Julie Sampson
attended.
Tourism Victoria UK /
Europe Mission 31
August/Sept 2014
KEY STRATEGY AREA: PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
Golf Working Group
Conference Group
Yarra Ranges Tourism to run a workshop to generate the necessary content and
ideas needed to take this group further towards the development of some
integrated packages.
Partnership Packages offered a Business Events and Conference partnership. We
are following up with key industry to establish their involvement and will meet with
all involved to develop a Business Events Website, digital Yarra Valley and
Dandenong Ranges Planners Guide and develop a plan for joint marketing initiatives.
Gardens Group
No further update
Arts and Culture
New artists have been added to the Prospects database for Yarra Ranges Tourism
with some taking up a Partnership. Next meeting 28 July will be a workshop to
create new content and promotional narratives for Arts and Culture in the region.
No further update
No further update
A discussion will be held later in July to start the development of cycling information
and content with local bike shops.
Romance & Indulgence
Wine and Food
Nature Based
Families & VFR
Term 2 School Holidays Promotion - see details under Marketing.
Coldstream Triangle
Trail.
This Group has finalised their unique selling proposition, undertaken a famil of one
another’s businesses and have agreed to funding a tear off A3 illustrated map for
cross promotion the businesses on the Trail. Yarra Ranges Tourism is facilitating the
development of all material, which will in turn contribute to our online content.
A launch will be scheduled to align with the opening of Miletos Café/Punt Rd
Brewery and Coombe – The Melba Estate in Aug/Sept. There is great enthusiasm in
this group.
The Trail material is being pitched to the Editor of the Lonely Planet’s Victorian
Chapter – the next edition is due for release in 2015.
KEY STRATEGY AREA: VISITOR SERVICING/ TOURISM EXCELLENCE
Visitor Information
Centres Update
BookEasy - $774,380 or 2,054 bookings 12.5% decline in bookings from 2012/13
·
Online - 40.6% (31% in 2012/13)
·
Staff-assisted - 57.5% (67% in 2012/13)
Manual bookings (DR VIC) - $53,735 (166 Bookings). 48% decline in bookings from
2012/13 in monetary value.
Yarra Valley VIC (2013-2014) Results
Walk-ins - 20,249 (8% decline on 2012/13)
Phone calls - 8,488 (2% decline on 2012/13)
Following the Board’s decision to keep the VIC at Harker St, the news has been
welcomed and is offering good stability and morale amongst staff and volunteers.
Dandenong Ranges VIC (2013-14) Results
Walk-ins - 14,719 (14% decline on 2012/13)
Phone calls - 1,194 (26% decline on 2012/13)
Yarra Ranges Tourism has for some time been investigating relocation of the
Dandenong Ranges VIC, which has created some concern with volunteers and has
appeared in the local press. We are working with the volunteers to keep them
informed with investigations. No recommendations have been put to the Board
regarding relocation at this stage.
The main pressure point for the Centres continues to be the renewal of volunteers.
Yarra Valley Map
This new fold-out map is close to being finalised.
100,000 Copies will be circulated and expected to represent a 12-month supply.
Free Wi Fi Hotspots
Due to delays with Coombe, The Melba Estate construction this remains the last
venue to be included in the new Network. All other sites are now live and all partner
business-listing details are in the process of being uploaded to the Hub. The final
step will be establishing signage promoting the service at each venue.
The portals are live and can be accessed here:
http://dandenongranges.thewifihub.com/index.php
http://yarravalley.thewifihub.com/index.php