Australian Tourism Data Warehouse

The Hon. D.G.E. HOOD (14:53): My question is for the Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment. Can the minister update the chamber on how SATC's work around the Australian Tourism Data Warehouse is giving our tourism operators a strong digital platform to promote their wonderful tourism products and experiences?

The Hon. D.W. RIDGWAY (Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment) (14:53): I thank the honourable member for his ongoing interest in the Australian digital activities within tourism. Members may be aware of a national platform for digital tourism. It is called the Australian Tourism Data Warehouse. It is owned by all the state and territory government tourism organisations and Tourism Australia. It is used to provide product listings on our state and territory government tourism websites as well as to provide information to other tourism related websites, and it is free for operators to list on.

The data provided by the Australian Tourism Data Warehouse—ATDW as I will refer to it now—is an integral part of the SATC's website southaustralia.com. It is the innovative digital infrastructure that underpins Australian tourism's competitive advantage in digital marketing and distribution globally. The ATDW is the central location for collecting and storing up-to-date information and data for South Australian tourism operators across the country. The data is made available to all state and territory organisations, including Tourism Australia, via a service agreement.

The way that businesses market and distribute their products and services is changing quickly. Recognising that the success of our operators, and therefore the visitor economy in general, is so reliant on businesses using digital platforms, the SATC is pushing hard to get operators on board the ATDW. Throughout my visits to the tourism regions, the SATC was constantly driving the point that operators needed to be listed on the ATDW to be a real part of the action.

ATDW leads and referrals are crucial for tourism operators because they are qualified leads who want to purchase direct from the tourism operator. Direct traffic to operator websites means that operators can sell direct to consumers and avoid paying commissions of up to 30 per cent to global online booking agents, which keeps money in South Australia and boosts our local tourism economy.

That push is clearly resonating with the industry. Since 1 July, total ATDW listings have increased by 93 per cent, and 569 new listings have been added since January 2018. These are 569 South Australian products and experiences that a consumer could previously have missed out on that will now be on the menu as part of their South Australian itinerary. As an example, just for November the ATDW had around 260 live events listed, and I know that SATC staff are working tirelessly to make sure these listings are constantly updated.

The most exciting part of these additional listings is that they are generating more interest in South Australia. Tourists are seeing that we have a plethora of unique and authentic offerings, hundreds of hidden gems that are being unearthed through this digital platform, and the more listings we put up the greater amount of traffic we get to southaustralia.com. We are following that up by adding more operators to the data warehouse and actively seeking more product to add to our listings.

When we look at the financial year-to-date figures, product views this financial year have increased by 264 per cent and ATDW leads have increased by 90 per cent. In October, there were 240,000 product views, a 278 per cent increase compared to September last year—I repeat, a 278 per cent increase compared to September last year. In August, there were 43,000 ATDW leads to the southaustralia.com website, a 95 per cent increase on last year.

To complement and leverage off these great results from the ATDW, we have our Rewards Wonder campaign, which is activating all the digital and social media channels and funnelling it through to southaustralia.com. Since 24 September, when SATC did its reveal of the Tell Us Where teaser campaign, we have had enormous numbers of Australians visit the site—488,000 visits, an increase of 7 per cent over the same time last year. A total of 65,035 leads have gone to South Australian tourism operators via their ATDW listings on southaustralia.com, up 96 per cent on the same period last year.

We are on track to exceed 400,000 leads to operators this financial year, based on our track record, and will pass last year's total by the end of January 2019. South Australia is leading the pack and pushing our state to the front of the mind of tourists as they make their decisions in an incredibly crowded and competitive market. I believe we are challenging our potential visitors: many of them may feel they know our state, but we have so many unique and authentic experiences which will reward their wonder when they look into what South Australia has to offer.

I really encourage our operators to share those secrets with would-be tourists and get on board with the ATDW so that they can help market themselves to the world.