Published on : Thursday, December 27, 2018
In order to do that Mr Carr has enlisted the help of tourism marketing guru Guy Taylor — the man who has helped boost Tasmania’s visitor appeal in recent years.
Over the next few months, the pair will travel around WA meeting industry people and running workshops to try to “get to the heart of what makes visiting WA different from visiting anywhere else”.
“We are embarking on a journey to define our unique tourism brand story,” Mr Carr said.
“The development of this story — your story, our story — is important because it will help us align and differentiate our marketing.
“This means that, in a crowded marketplace, it will be easier for a visitor to choose WA over one of our competitors. We want to present tourism in WA as something that has significant appeal because it is uniquely linked to who we are and where we are.”
Mr Carr said the end result would be more than just a catchy logo but rather a defining and distinctive concept that could be embraced by the local industry and all West Australians.
“Experience Extraordinary was launched in 2010 and was developed when WA was a very different place,” he said.
Mr Carr was appointed as Tourism WA’s managing director in September. He has more than 20 years of experience in marketing and events and was co-founder of the brand consultancy Front Foot Agency, which has offices in Sydney and France.
“Perth will also host three significant trade events — the Australian Tourism Exchange in April, Corroboree West in October and Dreamtime in December.
“In addition, we are going to have an amazing events program at Perth Stadium with the Manchester United matches, the State of Origin rugby league clash and the Bledisloe Cup rugby match between the Wallabies and the All Blacks.”
Since starting his new job in October, Mr Carr has spent a lot of his time working towards securing more direct flights to Perth from China, India and Japan.
“New flights are critical for our growth but just as importantly we need to work with our existing airlines to grow their capacity,” Mr Carr said.
“Next year will be a very important one for tourism in WA,” he said.