Australians have a new way to plan a local holiday with national podcast – Drive your own adventure – shining a spotlight on Queensland’s regional tourism hot spots along popular road trip routes.
The 30-episode series, produced by Ingenia Holidays and featuring icons like Sealife Mooloolaba, Cairns Skyrail and Indigenous Edutainer David Hudson, broadcasts ‘behind the scenes’ insights from tourism operators and local tourism identities to a growing audience of eager listeners, with 22 percent of Australians now listening to podcasts, up from 18 percent last year.
Ingenia Holidays Chief Operating Officer Nikki Fisher said the series would add something unique to the current podcast landscape.
“The podcast airwaves are full of people recounting travel stories, but this series gets up close and personal with many of our region’s favourite tourism operators as well as some of the ‘hidden gems’ that are well-known locally, but lesser known to the broader market,” Ms Fisher said.
“With more and more people listening to podcasts, we’re finding that people are using them as a tool to help plan their holidays, and for people on the road a lot – like road trippers and caravaners – a podcast is the perfect way to do that holiday research en route.”
Drive your own adventure covers a range of topics from holiday destinations across Queensland that are popular with intra- and interstate visitors, whose numbers were up 11.8 percent to 24.6 million in the year ending March 2019, according to data from Tourism and Events Queensland.
Ms Fisher said the choice to highlight Queensland’s regional destinations on the podcast was easy – given the diversity of tourism offerings from region to region, the hidden gems ripe for discovery and the great appetite from travellers to venture ‘off the beaten track’.
“The podcast features world-renowned Indigenous ‘Edutainer’ David Hudson who talks about ‘going west’ on your travels and shares stories from his past – including the time he found himself playing digeridoo for Jack Nicholson and Marlon Brando,” Ms Fisher said.
“We also hear from Ed Gibson, owner of Hervey Bay Dive, who tells us about what it’s like swimming with 30 tonne humpback whales, and also talks about the recent addition to the Hervey Bay dive scene – the HMAS Tobruk dive wreck sunk in 2018 – and how in one short year the ship has flourished into a marine ecology hub.”
The first instalment of the podcast series is now available at www.ingeniaholidays.com.au/podcast or via free download on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Soundcloud or Stitcher, with a second instalment of podcasts featuring New South Wales destinations to be released in the new year.
Full list of podcast episodes – by region
Cairns
- Cairns Aquarium
- Blazing Saddles Adventures
- Skyrail Rainforest Cableway
- Reef Restoration Foundation
- Tjapukai Cultural Park
- Tourism Tropical North Queensland
- Ingenia Holidays Cairns Coconut
Atherton Tablelands
- Mt Uncle Distillery
- Skybury Tropical Plantation
- David Hudson Indigenous Edutainer
Innisfail and surrounds
- Paronella Park
Outback
- Undara Experience
Fraser Coast
- Tasman Venture
- Hill of Promise Winery
- Fraser Explorer Tours
- Fraser Coast Tourism & Events
- Hervey Bay Dive Centre
- Bargara Brewing Company
- Ingenia Holidays Hervey Bay
Gympie
- Mary Valley Rattler
Sunshine Coast and hinterland
- Your Mates Brewing Company
- Sea Life Mooloolaba
- Maleny Dairies
- Maleny Botanic Gardens and Bird World
- Tourism Noosa
- Ingenia Holidays Rivershore
National
- Experience Co. Adventure Tourism
- Caravan Life – Ken and Lorraine Martin
- Caravan Life – Janice and Rex Drane
