Tourism Victoria is engaged in a four year program to accelerate the adoption of online booking in the tourism industry. (For an overview of the program, please click here).

A key component of the program is an education campaign designed to improve the tourism industry’s understanding of online booking and e-marketing more generally. This program will be led in partnership with industry associations, local and regional tourism organisations and visitor information centres and will small to medium sized businesses with the information they need to:

1. Build a successful website;
2. Market themselves effectively online;
3. Choose an online booking system that’s right for them; and
4. Distribute their product online through an online booking system.

A multi-faceted approach

The industry education campaign will use number of strategies to increase awareness of online marketing best practices. These include:

Local mentors program

Since the best advice often comes from experienced industry peers, Tourism Victoria will be recruiting local tourism operators who have successfully taken the step online to act as ‘local mentors’. The mentors will offer guidance and advice to other operators and serve as a feedback channel for ideas and questions to Tourism Victoria.

e-Marketing and Online Booking Road shows

A series of seminars and workshops, developed in conjunction with industry groups and regional tourism bodies, to be held across Victoria. Tourism business operators will receive practical advice, comprehensive materials and hear from businesses that can help them get online.

Tourism e-Kit

Tourism Victoria has developed a full suite of e-marketing training materials written specifically for the tourism industry. With the Tourism Online Marketing E-Kit, operators with little to no online marketing experience will learn how to set up a website, pick a good domain name, use search advertising, pick an online booking system and distribute to other websites. The set of 32 fact sheets covers almost every aspect of online marketing and will be offered free to the industry.

Video case studies

Technical jargon and endless documentation can often intimidate small business owners taking their first online steps. As an alternative, Tourism Victoria will develop a series of short videos that examine the online successes of a number of tourism businesses. How did these business establish an effective web presence? What were the challenges they faced and how did they overcome them? What advice do they have for others? These video case studies will present the program’s content in an accessible way.

Newsletters and industry outreach

Tourism Victoria will be communicating regularly with industry about its online booking project and how operators can get involved or learn more. An e-newsletter and updates via industry association and VIC newsletters will report on training program schedules and new developments in online booking.

More questions?

If you have any questions about Tourism Victoria’s online booking program, please contact the visitvictoria.com Support Desk: