Managing your tourism business online

Getting your tourism business online can provide new opportunities and benefits. There are many ways in which to interact with your customers online, and it's a good idea to consider which ways will best suit your business.

Digital health check

Our free digital health check is a good place to start. It will help you identify ways to improve your digital capability and be more competitive in a global tourism marketplace.

Digital skills

Having a website is an essential business tool today. Whether you are taking online bookings, or simply want to provide some information about your business and your contact details, follow our steps for building a website.

Social media

Social media is a powerful tool to broadcast your message and increase your customer reach. Use our resources below to manage and promote your tourism business through social media.

Find out more about using social media for business.

Tourism Australia and TEQ social media tips for tourism

These programs cover key social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, plus video content and YouTube.

Tourism Australia shares their tips and tricks to help you keep your own social media presence up to speed.

Tourism and Events Queensland (TEQ) also provide information about marketing and social media.

Blogging

Many Australian businesses are using blogs to market their business – promoting their activities, sharing news with customers, reaching new audiences, creating sales and delivering better service. Find out how blogs work, potential benefits from business blogs, ideas for better blogging and details about managing online conversations.

Learn more about blogging and digital marketing and advertising.

Online booking and payment

Research shows that consumers have an expectation to be able to instantly book tourism experiences online at any time of day and from anywhere in the world.

As more people buy goods and services online, it is becoming essential that a business sets up an online payment option to make this easy and secure.

One of the criteria for products to be part of TEQs Best of Queensland Experiences Program is for operators to have a website with a secure online booking platform.

Read more about taking online payments for your business, how to get started as well as some tips about online security.

Search engine optimisation (SEO)

SEO is the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a web search engine's unpaid results.

Learn how SEO can improve your web presence and grow your business.

Registering with Australian Tourism Data Warehouse (ATDW)

One way that you can increase your online exposure and have your business seen by more travellers is by listing with ATDW – Australia's national tourism database and distribution platform feeding websites such as Australia.com and Queensland.com. ATDW supports over 90,000 tourism listings across 11 product categories, published by over 250 online distributors.

Legal obligations and safety

Expanding your business online does carry some risks. Ensure that you're across compliance and security matters. You must meet legal obligations when conducting business online, which will protect both you and your customers.

The Australian Cyber Security Centre provides up-to-date advice and tools for handling online threats such as email fraud, malware and targeted website attacks.

Digital business grants

Use the Queensland Government grants finder to see if any digital grants are currently available.

Also consider...

• Explore other Tourism and Events Queensland useful resources to develop the digital aspects of your tourism business, and learn about the Best of Queensland Experiences program.
• Find other workshops, webinars and industry events for hospitality, tourism and sport businesses.