Case study: Tasmania driving innovation in the visitor economy

Tourism is now Australia’s second most valuable export industry and is a particularly important driver of economic and employment growth in regional communities. Nowhere is this truer than Tasmania, where tourist numbers have increased by 40 per cent over the past five years, making a significant contribution to the island state’s economic recovery along the way. While few dispute the size and significance of the sector, the innovative use of technology to enhance the visitor experience and create value has largely been limited to marketing and to transforming the relationship between tourism operators and their customers. Technology may have revolutionised the way we plan and book our holidays, not to mention the way that we travel, but industry and government alike have been much slower to embrace technology to analyse and respond to more systemic trends in this large and dynamic sector. A team of researchers from the University of Tasmania, headed by project leaders Professor Richard Eccleston and Dr Anne Hardy, are challenging this very traditional approach to tourism market research and the rest of the world is watching.