Tourism Australia is embracing mobile technology to assist travellers in planning an amazing Australian journey, with the launch of its first iPhone application (app) the Oz Planner – the mobile extension of the Walkabout Planner.

Based on Tourism Australia’s well-established online holiday planning tool walkaboutplanner.australia.com, the new Oz Planner iPhone app uses mapping technology to give users direct access to tourism product listings like tour providers, accommodation and car hire.

Travellers using the OzPlanner iPhone app to plan their trip can access 16 suggested Australian journeys and either navigate through the journeys to see highlights, images and suggested activities, or search a range of destinations and experiences and get suggestions for their trip.

Tourism Australia Managing Director, Andrew McEvoy said that the Oz Planner iPhone app was designed to create a portable, engaging, motivational experience about travelling in Australia.

“Mobile platforms are a great opportunity for Tourism Australia to extend its presence beyond traditional advertising and marketing to showcase the country’s diverse tourism experiences,” Mr McEvoy said.

“The OzPlanner iPhone app is an especially effective way for us to reach some of our key tourism source markets so when they are looking to plan their escape from the daily grind they can get a taste of Australia with panoramic images of holiday experiences that will motivate them to plan and book a trip.

”Users of our new iPhone app will also be able to easily keep detailed holiday plans in their phone, making travel so much easier once they are here plus they will also have access to more than 20,000 tourism products and services throughout Australia,” Mr McEvoy said.

Tourism Australia will also use the iPhone app technology to gain new insights into mobile user behavior to tailor its marketing to this audience.

Some of the features of the new Oz Planner iPhone app are:

• Content on 16 Australian journeys supported by mapping technology which plots categorised product and helps the user take the next step in planning and booking.
• The ability to bookmark information on Australian tourism products or contact products of interest directly via three point/touch ways of the iPhone – either by email, web or phone.
• The ability to work with inbuilt GPS technology to help visitors orientate themselves to product near their current location during their travels in Australia.
• Allows for other map or listing based searches from the Australian Tourism Data Warehouse (ATDW) national database giving users access to more than 20,000 tourism products.

The Oz Planner iPhone app will be released initially in English with other languages to follow and can be downloaded from iTunes or from Australia.com. It was developed by Tourism Australia in conjunction with Tribal DDB.