THE Blue Lake city is enjoying an upswing in digital tourism growth with thousands of people across the world visiting the “Discover Mount Gambier” website.
The website – launched by Tourism Mount Gambier just 18 months ago – has proven to be an online springboard for city’s tourism sector, which is estimated to generate around $72m each year for the city’s economy.
According to new figures released, the website attracted more than 6300 unique visits between December and January and has 28,000 annual unique visits.
And in a positive trend, the website has recorded an increase in visitors each month.
The top ranking cities that visitors hailed from include Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Chicago, which is the jazz capital of America.
The interest from Chicago may stem from a social media campaign, which targeted Chicago to coincide with Generations in Jazz.
Tourism Mount Gambier deputy chair Ockert Le Roux said the website was recording monthly growth figures.
While the new website was still cementing itself in the online market, he said digitally-based marketing appeared to be paying dividends for the city.
The demographic profile of visitors was predominantly male, aged 25, seeking adventure activities who lived in Adelaide or Melbourne.
Mr Le Roux said these adventure activities included cycling, bushwalking, diving, snorkelling and other outdoor activities.
“This is information is important information so we can develop products in that space,” the well known photographer said.
Mr Le Roux also revealed the event section was among the most popular sections of the website.
“We are certainly seeing growth numbers on the website. Over the past 18 months there has not been a single backward month in visitor numbers,” he added.
During peak tourism periods, the number of people visiting the website can spike to 3500.
“Over the Easter weekend, we expect there will be quite a bit of traffic to the website,” Mr Le Roux said.
Visitors are accessing the Mount Gambier suite via mobile (59pc), then desktop (31.7pc) and tablet (9.1pc).
Other statistics show the average length of stay on the website was one minute and 33 seconds.
Meanwhile, the Discover Mount Gambier Facebook site has now reached more than 5400 followers and 1900 on Instagram.
Tourism operator Jodie Pudney – from the Umpherston Sinkhole Kiosk and Souvenirs – said the unique sinkhole was among the city’s premier tourist destinations.
She the iconic sinkhole and its furry possum residents continued to be a major drawcard with the carpark at times overflowing with interstate number plated cars.
“We get good numbers of tourists here through the summer month,” Ms Pudney said.
She revealed visitors hailed from overseas as well as Melbourne, Adelaide and Queensland.
“We have a variety of tourists from the whole country.”
Given the photographs of the Umpherston Sinkhole often being a centrepiece online marketing campaigns, she said this online presence was a helpful marketing tool.
“We seem to find the top two tourist attractions are between Blue Lake and the Umpherston Sinkhole,” she said.
“We get a lot of people come here first and then go to the Blue Lake – we are like a little information centre here.”
Ms Pudney said the kiosk sometimes opened late at night to cater for tourists during peak times and explained The Border Watch Stay Another Day publication was popular among travellers.
