WHY SHOULD I BE INVOLVED WITH TOURISM TRADE DISTRIBUTION?

Distribution is a critical part of growing your tourism business - by partnering with travel agents, wholesalers or inbound tour operators, you can reach more new customers than you could afford to on your own.

Tourism is a highly competitive market and to attract customers and generate sales, you must be able to be found easily.  Trade distribution complements your own marketing activity - advertising, via your website or social media - by tapping into your partners' marketing efforts to reach customers you wouldn’t otherwise have access to.  For this access, you will pay a commission on any guaranteed bookings that your partner secures for you.

WHY SHOULD I PAY A COMMISSION?

You undertake marketing to increase your direct bookings - these marketing activities (such as developing and maintaining a website, social media advertising, printing brochures and more) have an upfront cost to your business and (hopefully) a return on investment down the track.

Distribution allows you to tap into the marketing efforts of your travel partners - they will generally wear the marketing costs upfront and you only pay commission once they have taken your booking and sent you the customers.

Commission is the cost of doing business and having others secure you bookings. It is not a ‘discount’.

HOW BT SUPPORTS YOU IN TOURISM TRADE DISTRIBUTION

Bundaberg Tourism works in the development space to ensure our region tourism industry has the opportunity, capacity and support to continue growing sustainably in the long term.  We deliver a range of programs and initiatives in partnership with our stakeholders and industry experts to ensure you are able to grow your business and our region is striving for industry best-practice. 

Our programs cover the following areas:

• supporting the development of new and existing products and experiences;
• working to attract new and refresh existing tourism infrastructure;
• empowering operators to deliver high quality customer experiences;
• growing business capabilities within the industry especially in the digital space;
• developing domestic and international distribution opportunities through tourism trade;
• working across the community to develop workforce plans and pathways.

TRADE MENTORING

Bundaberg Tourism offers trade mentoring that help operators prepare their experience and pricing for tourism trade distribution through partnerships with Australian Tourism Export Council (ATEC), Tourism Events Queensland (TEQ) and the Queensland Regional Tourism Network (QRTN).

To be promoted through Bundaberg Tourism and the SGBR's Trade Product portfolio, operators must be ‘Trade Ready’.  This means they have completed a trade mentoring program or be owned by a company that participates in the Tourism Trade Distribution system.

  MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR MEMBERSHIP

If you are interested in finding out more our Trade Mentoring program, please reach out to Bundaberg Tourism’s Trade & Industry Development Executive Loni Hammond. loni.hammond@bundabergregion.org

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