The objective of the Southern Tablelands Region Trail Development & Distribution Project was to support economic recovery across Local Government Areas impacted by the 2019-2020 bushfires, through the development of experience trails coupled with an intensive tourism awareness campaign, designed to drive visitation and position the Southern Tablelands region as a distinct and competitive tourism region within NSW.
Five trails were developed for three Local Government Areas (LGAs) within the Southern Tablelands, designed to showcase the destinations and encourage visitation to the region. The three LGAs included Queanbeyan-Palerang Regional Council (QPRC), Goulburn-Mulwaree Council (GMC) and Upper Lachlan Shire Council (ULSC).
The five trails include:
- Wine, Water, Wonder – QPRC
- Vibrant Villages and Passionate Producers – ULSC
- Wild Hume: Nature and History – GMC & ULSC
- Off the Beaten Track – QPRC
- Recharge in the Great Outdoors – GMC & ULSC
The themed trails and awareness campaign were designed to highlight to visitors the range of experiences on offer in the region and encourage extended stays and dispersal throughout towns and villages.
Trail development
Twenty towns across the three LGAs were included in the trail content creation (images, video, and copy), with the key objective to develop inspirational journey content with high consumer appeal to encourage potential visitors to use the trail platform to plan their trips. During the content creation, 110 local tourism products were updated in the Australian Tourism Data Warehouse (ATDW) and linked to the mapped trails.
Trail platform development and trail integration (visitnsw):
- 110 tourism products updated in ATDW and tagged to an interactive map
- 40+ content widgets built on www.visitnsw.com
- Six trail landing pages with map feature created on www.visitnsw.com
- Nine key destination pages refreshed with new content
- Five trail video reels featured on the visitnsw YouTube channel
Dynamic mapping – Master guide asset
In addition to the six trail landing pages with the dynamic mapping feature created on www.visitnsw.com a standalone URL was created to host the dynamic mapping to allow the trails to be embedded on each of the LGA tourism websites, which was available for use by the LGAs in November 2022 and has been successfully embedded (mapping integration) on each of the council’s websites.
View the dynamic mapping tool which has been updated to include additional tours and product available across the Southern Tablelands via this link.
Now that the project has been finalised and the funding acquitted, Yass Valley Council and Hilltops Councils, along with the three LGAs involved in the initial project, have all been provided with access to the platform to add additional content.