Selling SGBR to Sydney
Posted on November 25th, 2015
Last week the three regions of Capricorn, Gladstone and Bundaberg again partnered to sell the Southern Great Barrier Reef (SGBR) Destination to Sydney ITO’s (Inbound Tour Operators). Over two days, very successful appointments were held with Goway Travel, All Pacific Travel Concept (APTC), Southern World Australia, Finesse South Pacific, ATS Pacific, Pan Pacific Travel Australia and Pacific Destinations, as well as a modest function hosted by us for the agents at The Rocks overlooking the Harbour and Sydney Opera House (with a prize basket of local SGBR produce including locally made ‘Keppel Moon’ candle, Pineapple jam, Bundaberg Rum and much more!
ITO’s are often referred to as ‘ground operators’ – they are local experts in a destination (i.e. Australia, Queensland) and they work with ‘export ready’ products that they promote overseas through other distributors.
Travel agents and meeting planners go to an ITO with certain specifications and the ITO then plans the itinerary, selects the tourism products to include and co-ordinates all accommodation, tour, transport reservations.
This is why it is critical that our SGBR destination is in the minds of major ITO’s when selling Queensland.
Over the past five years, we have worked hard and invested significant funds into growing our tourism product through the travel trade distribution channels, with just a hand full of products in the Capricorn region playing in this space 5 years ago, we now have trebled that number. This is the same for the Gladstone and Bundaberg regions, so now we have about 50 tourism products across the Southern Great Barrier Reef being considered by ITO’s and their Wholesalers, which is a key part of our future success.
Tourism products wishing to be sold by ITO’s must provide appropriate commission levels and be ‘trade ready’, which is why Capricorn Enterprise provides annual Trade Ready Training for appropriate products.
We can only build on our SGBR destination brand by ensuring our products can be contracted and sold in a global market. Our next major investment is to host more of our ITO partners to our destination in 2016 so they can experience our trade ready products which makes them easier to sell.
