National round-up                        January 2007

National exposure for rated properties

Members of state motoring bodies, eg NRMA, RACV, RACQ are regular users of club websites to research and book accommodation.  Our national logo now appears on all these sites providing a link to state member properties that are star rated by AAA Tourism. We see this as excellent exposure for the industry as it creates greater awareness of the logo and our industry peak body.

National website upgraded

The BBFA website www.australianbedandbreakfast.com.au continues to rank very well with the major search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Nine MSN.  It was set up to be a portal to the state member associations' websites and, for the travelling public, it carries a wealth of information about Australia and about the characteristics of each state and territory. In a recent upgrade, a 'shopping cart' facility was added to enable the online purchase of the new National Gift Vouchers.  Now a proposal is before the BBFA Board to expand the use of the website for gathering much needed research data into the BBF industry.

Land Tax

While Land Tax is a state taxation issue, BBFA is currently preparing a status report of the differences between each of the states. We are doing this in recognition of the impact that the tax is currently having on some states and the opportunities that may be available for us to lobby where possible. 

Where do I market my property?

Operators coming into the industry often approach us asking how their marketing investment can be best spent. Over coming months, we will try to give you an overview of some of the many products that are out there, and how they can be put to best use. This is purely a guideline and may or may not be your personal preference. Knowledge is always an asset, especially when we all get hit with that huge amount of SPAM that floats around. We commence today with a snapshot of the Australian Tourism Data Warehouse.
 

Australian Tourism Data Warehouse

The Vision of ATDW which is "to be the best provider of relevant content, software and multi-channel distribution for the Australian tourism industry"really spells out the relevance of their role. Their purpose is to store and distribute product and destination information including accommodation, tours, transport, attractions, events, destinations and motivation information.
The benefit of listing with ATDW is that your listing automatically appears on the State tourism web site, Australia.com and is published by the many other licensed distributors of ATDW. To list on the ATDW products needs to contact Tourism Queensland by entering the ATDW website at www.atdw.com.au and registering under the "Industry" button.

Global Positioning

B&B and Farmstay properties will become easier to find shortly following a deal established between Sensis Pty Ltd and state BBF peak bodies. Sensis subsidiary, Whereis® is a leading provider of digital map databases for Australian and New Zealand navigation systems and the online mapping environment. In late 2006, the industry body negotiated to include BBF properties in the Whereis.com in-car and portable navigation systems. This initiative will give BBFA properties exposure to about two hundred thousand in-car systems per annum. Points of interest categories include headings like Bed & Breakfasts, Tourist Attractions, Parks, Shopping Centres, Banks, ATM's and much more.  The navigation system will display, on a map, the location of all of the selected B&Bs within the area the traveller is situated. Whereis technology will then provide turn by turn guidance instructions to the location of the chosen site.

Email Security and Spam Filters

BBFA is against spam tactics and will only send email communications, including the National Round Up, to recipients in the industry such as association members, tourism industry colleagues and members of the media.   With the increase in nuisance and sometimes malicious, virus carrying spam many members have installed spam filters such as SpamArrest, Mail Frontier and Active Spam Killer.  Sometimes legitimate communications get blocked by these programs and to help to get emails from an acceptable sender, such as BBFA, through your spam filter you should add the sender's email address to your address book., your 'safe sender list' or your 'white list'.

Official Launching Celebrations in the West

The newly formed Town & Country Accommodation of Western Australia will officially launch on 16 February.  National Chairman, Peter Cook, will travel to Perth to do the honours and while in Perth he will meet arranged with a number of industry contacts.

Pandemic Preparedness for Australian Industry

The Department of Industry, Tourism and Resources (DITR) and The Department of Health and Ageing (DoHa) are seeking to engage the BBF industry in a pandemic preparedness and planning process to ensure that the industry is best placed to deal with a potential influenza pandemic.  BBFA will commence consultations with representatives of these two Federal Departments.

Victorian Bushfires

The Victorian Government have announced a $3.7 million recovery package to be shared across the North East and Gippsland over 18 months.  Tourism Victoria's $450,000 'Inspired by Gippsland' marketing campaign is due to be launched in March (deferred from early February because of the fires). This will promote tourism opportunities across the region.    AGV is working closely with Tourism Alliance Victoria to identify the specific needs of its members and to encourage the expenditure of assistance funding to help them through this period.  TAV's Nick Hunt,  says "$1 billion is the value of tourism visitor expenditure for the year ending June 2006 to the fire-affected areas of Gippsland and the High Country.  The summer season for many businesses constitutes up to 80% of their annual turnover.  The financial impact is and will continue to be significant."

National Roundup is a publication of Bed & Breakfast and Farmstay Australia (BBFA) comprising the State and Territory B&B and Farmstay associations within Australia.

Disclaimer: The material contained in this publication is of a general nature only.  To the extent permitted by law, no liability is accepted for any loss or damage as a result of any reliance on this information.