The Brief:

Barking Owl Communications was retained to introduce Hamilton Island’s newest luxury property, qualia, to key domestic and international markets. The objective was to create widespread awareness of the opening, generate a sense of excitement and inspire bookings.

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The Approach:

A range of travel industry and government sector briefings were held to garner third party support via their networks and marketing channels. Media training was conducted for qualia’s key executives and a full media kit was developed. Barking Owl arranged individual briefings with targeted media to support the wider media release distribution. We conducted pre-opening site inspections, an extensive post-opening media famil program including travel agent group visits. We arranged ASTW lunches, attended trade industry events, conducted extensive trade and consumer media outreach and liaised extensively with and hosted international media. Partnerships with appropriate organisations were initiated including The Australian Ballet and Paspaley, we developed an ambassador program to reach out to key influencers, managed celebrity outreach via managers/agents and supported Island and qualia specific events such as Hamilton Island Race Week, Great Barrier Feast.

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The Results:

• In the first 12 months, we achieved over 300 media stories in leading luxury magazines, newspapers and websites reaching our key target A/B demographic

• Over 40 site inspections and hosted media trips – resulting in favourable reviews from all journalists who experienced qualia

• Approximately $1.5M of equivalent advertising value generated not including the unvalued power of third party endorsement from key influencers

• Bookings resulted directly from coverage and word of mouth, all promotion was exclusively PR with no paid advertising.