The ‘Let’s Skip Town Together’ campaign, which ran from March to December 2016, was jointly sponsored by Mudgee Region Tourism and Destination NSW.

The target was an additional 5,000 visitor nights or the equivalent of $800 thousand to the region’s visitor economy.

The campaign blitzed that target and secured an additional 14,108 visitor nights, or the equivalent of $2.3 million.

Mudgee Region Tourism CEO, Cara George was thrilled with the results.

“We actually exceeded our target by 182 per cent and that resulted in an additional $305 per person spend for the region,” she said.

The average spend for the central west district is on-average $165 per person per trip, according to statistics from Tourism Research Australia.

Mudgee region visitors outspend visitors to both Orange and Bathurst.

From December 2015, the average spend per person, per trip in Orange was $144, in Bathurst it was $244.

Dubbo had the highest spend at $345.

“Let’s Skip Town Together was a partnered campaign – we were successful in obtaining funds from the regional visitor economy fund with Destination NSW – so it was a matched dollar for dollar campaign,” Mrs George said.

“Our targeted return on investment was 3.3 times our overall investment, but we exceeded our target with a result of 9.4 times our campaign investment of $240,000.”

The campaign was designed to appeal to the short break visitor – who want to enjoy a sophisticated food and drink experience.

“Our key message for the campaign was that the region is a short break destination, we’re accessible from Sydney with just a three and a half hour drive,” Mrs George said. 

“It wasn’t just tourism businesses that benefited, peripheral businesses from retail, supermarkets and petrol stations also received a boost.” 

The positive result, comes just a month after Mudgee Region Tourism won gold for Destination Marketing at the Australian Tourism Awards.