Building a Connected
Regional Tourism Growth Engine
The Challenge
Destination Port Stephens (DPS) represents a region rich in
bucket-list tourism experiences: from coastal adventures and wildlife encounters to premium accommodation, dining, and cruises.
Like many regional destinations, the challenge wasn’t awareness alone. DPS needed to:
Drive visitation beyond peak seasons
Support local tourism operators with tangible commercial outcomes
Demonstrate the value of destination marketing at both board and partner level
Build momentum through connected campaigns, rather than one-off activations
As DPS evolved its digital maturity, it was clear that success would depend on treating destination marketing and operator growth as one connected ecosystem.
“What mattered most to us was seeing real outcomes for our tourism operators. This activity delivered engagement and commercial results.”
— Jo Thomas, CEO, Destination Port Stephens
Our Role
ELY Marketing was engaged as an ongoing digital marketing partner to support Destination Port Stephens across campaign strategy, influencer marketing, and paid digital advertising on Meta, TikTok, and Google.
Rather than approaching campaigns in isolation, our role has been to:
Build performance month by month
Optimise creative and channel mix based on real audience behaviour
Align destination-level storytelling with operator outcomes
Deliver reporting suitable for operational, stakeholder, and board-level review
This long-term approach created a strong foundation for DPS’s winter campaign, and for the broader regional strategy that followed.
“ELY Marketing understands destination marketing at a deeper level. They don’t just run campaigns. They think about how the whole region moves together.”
— Jo Thomas, CEO, Destination Port Stephens
Campaign Focus
Awaken Winter’s Wild
To challenge seasonal travel perceptions, we developed and launched Awaken Winter’s Wild, a winter campaign designed to reposition Port Stephens as a destination worth visiting year-round, particularly during the winter months.
The campaign paired aspirational storytelling with performance-driven execution, using:
TikTok for discovery and inspiration
Meta for consideration and retargeting
Google for high-intent travel searches
Influencer-led content to increase authenticity and relevance
The result was a campaign that inspired travelers while also meeting them at key decision points.
“Awaken Winter’s Wild demonstrated what’s possible when compelling storytelling is supported by a strong performance strategy - each strengthening the other.”
landing page visits at an average cost of $0.10 per visit
145,000+
outbound clicks sent directly to local tourism operators
Year-on-year efficiency improved, with significantly lower CPMs and higher engagement.
Importantly, momentum generated during the winter campaign carried through into September and beyond, demonstrating that winter demand could be activated when inspiration and intent were aligned correctly.
Operator Impact
Turning Destination Traffic into Business Growth
A core objective of the campaign was ensuring destination marketing translated into tangible outcomes for local businesses.
A local holiday letting business recorded 30% growth during the low season, reinforcing the value of targeted regional promotion paired with clear booking pathways.
In addition, thousands of high-intent users were driven directly to accommodation providers, tour operators, dining venues, and attractions across the region.
A Blueprint for Regional
TOURISM GROWTH
ELY Marketing’s involvement in Port Stephens extends beyond Destination Port Stephens alone.
Over time, we have worked with multiple tourism businesses across the region, including:
Beachside Holiday Parks through influencer-led campaigns
Moonshadow TQC Cruises through ongoing digital advertising support
Visit Shoal Bay through content and visual storytelling
Wanderers Retreat through a new brand story and website
Because ELY Marketing works across multiple Port Stephens tourism brands, we’re able to create efficiencies and opportunities that wouldn’t exist in siloed campaigns.
For example, while coordinating content for Visit Shoal Bay, we leveraged relationships with influencers already visiting the region to secure models at no additional cost, reducing production spend, accelerating delivery, and producing high-quality assets aligned with the broader regional narrative.
“This isn’t a transactional relationship. We see ELY Marketing as a long-term partner in building sustainable growth for Port Stephens.”
— Jo Thomas, CEO, Destination Port Stephens
Influencer &
CONTENT STRATEGY
Influencer-led, in-feed content consistently outperformed highly polished assets across platforms.
As a result:
Influencer content was repurposed into paid media
Creative performance improved
Cost efficiency increased
Storytelling remained native to each platform
This approach proved especially effective on TikTok and Meta, supporting both awareness and consideration stages of the travel decision-making journey.
Operator Engagement &
CAPABILITY BUILDING
As part of the DPS partnership, ELY Marketing also created an exclusive offer for DPS members, included within their membership benefits.
This initiative:
Offered complimentary Digital Growth Sessions
Allowed ELY Marketing to support more Port Stephens businesses
Further aligned operator marketing with regional storytelling
Strengthened trust, confidence, and capability across the region
This model supported DPS’s broader objective of delivering meaningful value to its members while building a more commercially resilient tourism ecosystem.
Promoting
BUCKET-LIST EXPERIENCES
Port Stephens is home to iconic, bucket-list tourism experiences.
Promoting these experiences allowed us to:
This initiative:
Balance aspirational destination storytelling with conversion-focused strategy
Align platform behaviour with traveller decision-making
Position the region as somewhere worth travelling to, not just browsing
This balance between emotion and performance sits at the core of our work.
The Result
Port Stephens demonstrates what’s possible when destination marketing and operator success are treated as one connected ecosystem.
ELY Marketing has developed a scalable, whole-region tourism growth model, ready to be applied to other Australian tourism regions in 2026 and beyond.
Client Perspectives
“ELY Marketing has become a valued strategic partner for Destination Port Stephens, bringing a deep understanding of our region, our industry and the complexity of marketing a diverse destination.
Through the Awaken Winter’s Wild campaign, ELY demonstrated the impact of combining strong destination storytelling with a clear, performance-led digital strategy. The campaign delivered strong engagement across the region and, importantly, tangible results for our partner businesses.
What truly sets ELY Marketing apart is their region-first approach. Their active involvement across Port Stephens enables smarter collaboration, greater efficiency and outcomes that benefit both the destination and individual operators. This approach has given us confidence at both an operational and Board level, and we see ELY as a trusted long-term partner.”
— Jo Thomas, CEO, Destination Port Stephens
“The winter campaign delivered clear, measurable results for our business. Generating $16,000 in sales from a $2,000 investment during a traditionally quieter season was a strong outcome for us.
Being part of a coordinated regional campaign reinforced the value of aligning operator marketing with destination strategy, and showed us what’s possible when it’s done well.”
