Tourism Central Coast

Challenge 

Funny thing, we all know about the Central Coast, but as it turns out no-one really knows what or where it is and what it’s all about. And if you did happen to think about the Central Coast, chances were you didn’t have anything very positive to say. That’s what we discovered after extensive consumer research.

“It’s a bit dated and daggy like someone’s older dad that still wears a Hawaiian shirt”

“Central Coast is the bogan capital of Australia there are more bogan’s per square kilometre than anywhere else in Australia”

Solution

We were asked to drive visitation. Our strategy was to not compete with the big budget annual trip, but to increase occasion usage with Sydney-siders, the segment with the most access and reason. The perfect short stay escape from the Sydney rat race. But first we needed to create a brand. Our idea needed to inspire you to get off your active-wear covered butt and stop bingeing on Netflix whilst chowing down on whatever Deliveroo had brought to your doorstep and instead get out and live.

The perfect positioning was revealed to us through real-time multi-variant testing to get direct feedback from our target on what would actually motivate them to get in their cars and head North. They wanted Adventure. But not with a capital A. We identified that all tourism campaigns promise the best experience ever. But what if we were different? We embraced our lack of the Opera House, towering mountains and Great Ocean Road. To be memorable (and believable), we needed to be realistic about our offering. Whilst the adventures you can have on the Central Coast are amazing, and you’ll love every second, and there are plenty adventures to be had, they’re not massive. Because when you come to the Central Coast you come to...Have a Little Adventure.

A fresh website was created as the functional focus of the brand — a place to help surface all the cool little adventures on offer. An important feature of the site are the itineraries. To heighten utility for travel intenders and therefore conversion, a cornerstone of the content are carefully curated 1-7 day journeys, strategically highlighting new and exciting adventures that will appeal to our target.

Results

Despite all the challenges stacked against us, we more than met our objectives. By changing perception of the region, we increased desirability of the region’s brand. This led to both improved intention to travel but more importantly, actual visitation. We increased tourism on the Coast to deliver the highest tourist spend on record – $1,117,000,000 (YE December 2019).

We generated a huge business impact an extra $283,000,000 in tourism (YE December 2019), a 34% increase over 2.5 years.