Guide
Destination marketing in Australia.
To market a tourism destination, run a layered campaign that builds awareness and drives bookings: brand TV and video for reach, social and content for inspiration, search and travel-platform advertising to capture intent, out-of-home in source cities, and measured point-of-sale placements like counter advertising to reach intrastate visitors where they spend.
Below are the six channels a state or regional campaign runs on, what each is best for, what it costs and the catch - so you can build a mix that inspires visits and stands up to scrutiny.
Every tourism dollar answers to someone. Spend some of it where the number is counted.
The options
Six ways to market a destination.
- 01
Brand TV and video
The reach engine - broadcast, BVOD and online video carrying the emotional destination story.
- Best for
- Mass awareness and the aspirational hook that starts a trip.
- Rough cost
- High production plus media weight.
- The catch
- Broad and expensive, reach is modelled, and it's hard to tie a spot to an actual visit.
- 02
Social and content
Inspiration and proof across Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, plus creator and influencer partnerships.
- Best for
- Inspiration, younger travellers and shareable moments.
- Rough cost
- Flexible ad spend plus creator fees.
- The catch
- Fragmented attention, and attribution to a booking is genuinely hard.
- 03
Search and travel platforms
Google and the booking platforms - Trip.com, Expedia and the rest - that capture active trip-planners.
- Best for
- Turning intent into a booking at the bottom of the funnel.
- Rough cost
- Per click or commission on the booking.
- The catch
- Bottom-funnel only - it harvests demand, it doesn't build the destination brand.
- 04
Out-of-home in source cities
Billboards, transit and digital screens in the interstate capitals your visitors travel from.
- Best for
- Source-market awareness at scale.
- Rough cost
- High, and higher for premium sites.
- The catch
- A passing glance, audience modelled rather than counted, and the site is shared.
- 05
PR, partnerships and events
Earned coverage, airline and platform co-operative campaigns, and on-the-ground activations.
- Best for
- Credibility and amplifying paid reach.
- Rough cost
- Variable, from modest to major.
- The catch
- Hard to control the message and harder to measure the return.
- 06
Counter advertising
Your destination full-screen on the payment screens at cafés, bars and shops across the state - in front of locals and visitors deciding where to go next.
- Best for
- Reaching intrastate audiences at everyday moments, with proof it ran.
- Rough cost
- By quote - one destination per location if you want it exclusive, or shared at a lower rate. Ask us for a rate for your area.
- The catch
- A measured intrastate awareness layer, not a mass-reach or booking channel.
Side by side
The channels, compared.
| Channel | Best for | Rough cost | Measurable? | Reach |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brand TV and video | Mass awareness | $$$ | Modelled | Very broad |
| Social and content | Inspiration | $$ | Reach, some clicks | Broad |
| Search / travel platforms | Capturing bookings | $$ | Bookings tracked | Intent only |
| Out-of-home (source cities) | Source-market brand | $$$ | Modelled | Broad |
| PR / partnerships | Credibility | $$ | Hard to measure | Variable |
| Counter advertising | Intrastate, measured | $ | Counted impressions | State-wide |
Cost is relative: $ light, $$$ heavy. Every campaign's numbers differ - treat this as a starting shape, not a quote.
Where Tap fits
The intrastate layer you can prove.
Tap is not a replacement for brand TV or a source-city billboard buy - those are your reach engines, and Tap's network is focused, not mass. What Tap adds is the one layer you can hand a board or an auditor: a state-wide, at-purchase awareness placement where every impression is a counted view, not a modelled estimate.
It suits intrastate campaigns especially well - reaching residents across your own state's towns and cities at the moment they pay, in the cafés and shops they already use. And you can book it exclusively: one destination per location, never sharing the screen.
Use it as the measured, high-attention complement to your reach buy - the part of the plan that comes back with a real number.
Common questions
Destination marketing, answered.
What is destination marketing?
Destination marketing promotes a place - a state, region, city or attraction - to prospective visitors, to build awareness, shape perception and drive visitation. It usually blends brand advertising to inspire a trip with lower-funnel activity that captures travellers ready to book, run by a tourism body, council or major operator.
How is tourism advertising measured?
Most channels report modelled numbers - estimated reach or opportunities to see. Search and booking platforms are trackable to a booking. Counter advertising sits apart: each impression is a real view we count at a location, not an estimate, which is the kind of number a publicly funded campaign can defend.
How do you reach intrastate visitors on a budget?
Intrastate "holiday at home" campaigns are cheaper and easier to measure than interstate mass media. Reaching residents across your own state's towns and cities through regional media, social and counter advertising costs a fraction of a national TV buy, and every counter impression is counted rather than modelled.
Reach your state, counted.
Tell us the destination and the audience, and we'll show you the state-wide screens available and what a counted campaign looks like.