Visit Sunshine Coast (VSC) has unveiled a new look Visitsunshinecoast.com, the region’s official tourism website providing travellers with enhanced access to visitor information.
VSC CEO, Simon Latchford, said Visitsunshinecoast.com welcomed more than 500,000 visits a year and was the first step for visitors considering a trip to the region.
“Digital technology is a key element in how visitors plan and book a holiday with travellers sourcing and sharing information on the move in new and exciting ways,” Mr Latchford said.
“As well as providing information on what to do, where to stay, travel guides, events, itineraries, blogs and booking capability; the redeveloped website is visually-engaging, destination-focused, can be viewed on different devices and delivers a more personalised visitor experience. It also contains business events and corporate sections.
“The digital tourism landscape has changed dramatically since the previous version of the website was built in 2012, with a larger percentage of visitors now accessing Visitsunshinecoast.com via a mobile or tablet device.
Executive Creative Director of Adelphi Digital Consulting Group, Kris Croucher said, “At the heart of the brief was a shared driving vision to bring the remarkable Sunshine Coast region proposition to life in front of the eyeballs that matter. Both Adelphi Digital and Visit Sunshine Coast teams have worked hand in glove to really move the needle in the digital destination marketing space. This most recent launch marks the first in what will be a series of continued digital product releases that are set to mark the Sunshine Coast out as the digital leader in Australia’s destination marketing space.”
Mr Latchford said the website was complemented by VSC’s social media content strategy of profiling user generated content.
“This type of promotion is genuine, authentic and incredibly valuable to us as an increasingly important and cost effective part of our overall destination marketing strategy.
“The new website feeds Instagram images on the homepage header, allowing visitors to contribute and share information using the hashtag #visitsunshinecoast, and bringing that story to life so that visitors can experience it for themselves.
Mr Latchford said the organisation had a strong focus on innovation and digital marketing with over 70,000 highly-engaged Facebook fans, nearly 50,000 Instagram followers and 10,000 Twitter followers. @VisitSunshineCoast recently passed the 1 million likes milestone on Instagram and currently has more than 88,000 posts tagged with #VisitSunshineCoast, as the prominent tourism hashtag in the region.
“Over the past 12 months, we have implemented a monthly Instameet for photographers and Instagrammers to meet in different locations across the Sunshine Coast. This has built a community of advocates posting images using our hashtag because they have a genuine desire to share their many personal and positive Sunshine Coast holiday or local experiences and, by doing so, play a part in promoting the region.
“We want to provide the information in a user friendly way to increase the length of stay for visitors to the Sunshine Coast region and increase the benefits to tourism businesses and events featured on our new website and through our social channels,” added Mr Latchford.
