Case Study: Tourism East—Webinar Delivery

CASE STUDIES & TESTIMONIALS

How customised training helped travel brands promote sustainable tourism

Our brief: What Tourism East needed

Tourism East, formerly Yarra Ranges Tourism (YRT), is a not-for-profit organisation and tourism authority for the Yarra Valley and Dandenong Ranges in Victoria, Australia. With backing from Visit Victoria, Yarra Ranges Council, Nillumbik Shire Council, Manningham City Council and local businesses, Tourism East creates effective marketing campaigns that benefit local businesses, visitors and residents.

Tourism East empowers its partners by arranging training and access to educational opportunities. They approached Mankind Digital to develop and deliver a workshop with key insights and strategies to effectively promote sustainable tourism. The workshop needed to cover a range of topical subjects about how to promote sustainable tourism, such as:

How to communicate sustainability efforts, actions and achievements once sustainability has been integrated into business practices
Gaining search engine visibility and social media traction
How to maximise media coverage and capitalise on it to increase online exposure

Our strategy for Tourism East

Our team crafted a 90-minute webinar especially designed to delve into the key topics identified while also addressing common challenges and providing practical tips for Tourism East’s premium partners to implement. Here are the steps we took:

Online workshop with strategies for success

The webinar content was developed and delivered online by Keeley Warren, founder and Director of Mankind Digital. The content explored the following essential topics in detail:

Why promoting sustainability efforts is crucial for tourism businesses
The importance of setting business and marketing goals that align with sustainability commitments
How to overcome common marketing challenges to promote sustainable tourism without greenwashing
Strategies for effectively communicating sustainable tourism actions and impacts
Identifying and leveraging potential marketing channels and tactics for maximum visibility

Concluding with a 15-minute interactive Q&A session, participants were able to ask more in-depth questions relating to the content and their individual challenges, along with raising questions that helped them understand how best to promote sustainable tourism in the Yarra Valley and Dandenong Ranges region.

What this webinar achieved

Premium partners in the Yarra Ranges region were provided with invaluable insights and actionable strategies to enhance their current marketing and communications efforts for the sustainable tourism initiatives and impacts implemented by their businesses.

In this webinar, we offered participants guidance on how to effectively communicate the impact of their sustainability efforts. We shared tips to craft compelling and transparent stories in order to attract visitors who are looking for responsible products and experiences. By avoiding greenwashing and building brand integrity, premium partners in the Yarra Ranges region were equipped with guidance to effectively promote their sustainability initiatives and commitments.

Key services we provided

Webinar content development: Promoting Sustainable Tourism
Webinar content delivery: Online
Preparation and ongoing use of presentation slides
Q&A Follow-Up
Video recording

Project Duration

Lead time: 4 weeks for research and preparation
Duration: 90-minute delivery

“Fantastic experience! The marketing knowledge shared by Keely was exceptional, and the content provided was very comprehensive. It's evident that Keeley and the team are well-versed in their field, offering valuable insights that have truly enhanced our understanding. They were easy to deal with and professional and responsive.”

Euan McDonald-Madden

Head of Marketing & Communications, Tourism East

Webinar host bio:

Keeley Warren is the founder and Director of Mankind Digital. With over 16 years of global expertise in workshop facilitation, training and digital marketing, she specialises in promoting sustainable, regenerative and responsible tourism internationally. In 2021, she launched Mankind Digital, a multi-award-winning tourism marketing organisation operating in Australasia, Europe and beyond. Mankind Digital specialises in effective communication and strategic tourism marketing for destinations, government agencies and travel brands dedicated to responsible and ethical tourism.

Customised tourism webinars and workshops achieve results

Through a tailored online workshop, tourism professionals operating in the Yarra Ranges and surrounding areas were provided with key insights and proven strategies to promote their sustainable tourism efforts. Explore how Mankind Digital can help support your tourism business or destination with fully customised and interactive workshops or training that delves into strategies for communicating and marketing sustainable, regenerative and responsible tourism. Speak to an experienced workshop facilitator today.

Carla De Kretser

I decided to work with Keeley as my digital marketing mentor due to her experience and professional and positive nature. During our time Keeley was a breath of fresh air that helped me build momentum and drive. Growing my confidence in digital marketing, and highlighted key performance measures to take in order to grow my business. I'd highly recommend Keeley to anyone looking to excel in marketing and have cheering you on for your business.

Cuba Clarita

When searching for a communications and marketing partner early last year, we specifically looked for a company that understood the delicate balance between promoting tourism while understanding our core values as a responsible tour operator committed to sustainable tourism. Mankind Digital stood out due to its specialised knowledge of sustainable and regenerative tourism practices, its impressive portfolio of environmentally conscious clients, and its innovative approach to authentic storytelling that avoids greenwashing. This was the best choice I could have made for the company. We are beyond happy with the results so far. This has helped our business enormously.

Rob Carpenter

We (Dryve Digital) worked with Keeley from Mankind Digital on a very large and complex website project. Throughout the process she has been professional, highly organised, and extremely supportive. Keeley kept everything on track, coordinated all the moving parts, and went above and beyond to help us manage what was a very demanding client project. Her communication and calm approach made a big difference, and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Mankind Digital to anyone looking for reliable and top level digital project management support

Dianne Dredge

The 2024 Regenerative Tourism by Design Virtual Summit was by far the largest virtual event that the Tourism CoLab has curated. We had spent a year or so thinking about it, but felt we lacked the capacity for such an ambitious project. Working with Mankind Digital gave me the confidence to program it in, get it started, and make it happen. The Summit was a huge success, not only in terms of participation, but also in generating interest in the CoLab’s learning opportunities and Communivrsity. We also received hundreds of emails congratulating the team and beautiful heartfelt reflections on the personal and professional value of the event. We could not have done it without Keeley and the team at MindKind Digital.

Fantastic experience! The marketing knowledge shared by Keely was exceptional, and the content provided was very comprehensive. It's evident that Keeley and the team are well-versed in their field, offering valuable insights that have truly enhanced our understanding. They were easy to deal with and professional and responsive.

Fiona Sombekke

Big thanks to Keeley and her amazing team at Mankind Digital who have helped us increase the exposure of our business SOM Blinds on Google and almost double our turnover from clients who find us organically via the SEO they have put in place! 👏👏

Safiri Travel

We engaged Mankind Digital to work on our brand awareness and social media strategy, and the experience has been transformative for our business. Keeley provided exceptional and highly personalised service. She delved deep into understanding our business, taking us through a comprehensive customer journey analysis that offered profound insights into our target audience. The virtual marketing discovery workshops were particularly insightful, guiding us through vital processes such as goal setting, customer persona creation, and empathy mapping. Through these workshops, we gained valuable knowledge about our customers' pain points, motivations, and barriers, enabling us to refine our marketing strategies effectively. Keeley's dedication to our success has proven that we are more than just a client; we are partners in achieving our business goals. We highly recommend Keeley and Mankind Digital to any company seeking a results-driven and customer-focused approach to their marketing endeavours."

Retreat Here

Our experience with Mankind Digital has been nothing short of exceptional! Keeley, in particular, has demonstrated a high level of professionalism and dedication. She goes above and beyond to ensure every recommendation for our business aligns perfectly with our needs. We loved the Marketing Discovery workshops in particular. They were an absolute game changer for Retreat Here. Keeley helped us to dive deeper into our customer personas, which gave us valuable insights as to how to create our marketing strategy. Keeley's guidance on SEO copywriting was also amazing, and we're using her templates all the time. They are a massive help to structure the articles, and to write content that resonate with our audience. Social media for our business, as well as marketing our retreats no longer feels overwhelming. Highly recommend Mankind Digital. Thank you Keeley and team!

Julie Baker

I met Keeley in 2007 when she was working at the West Australian Newspaper. She rang me interested to know more about one of our Wellness Retreats that was being featured. We met and quickly realised that we had similar interests in health, wellbeing and sustainable tourism that honoured indigenous cultures worldwide. She has joined our Journeys of the Spirit retreats on several occasions, so knows firsthand the long-term benefits of holistic health & sustainable tourism. Keeley’s gifts of digital marketing, communications, copywriting, sustainability, conservation and travel brings all of her passions together with Mankind Digital. Her skill in being able to articulate for me as a client, honours what I bring to the world in a way that I could never do, making my life so easy. Keeley has become an invaluable support within my evolving business over the past decade. Julie Baker