Rise Up for our River

Tourism operators right along the Murray River have been significantly impacted by the once-in-a-century flooding event, with many being closed since late 2022.

A $4.6 million river tourism recovery plan includes the “Rise up for our river” marketing campaign and the River Revival Voucher program.

The campaign showcases iconic river locations, highlights tourism operators along the river and calls on South Australians to throw their support – and dollars – to impacted river communities. It is being launched state-wide across TV, print and outdoor, as well as digital and social media, with a TVC to run from mid-March.

You can also find the River Regions - their accommodation, tours and experiences - highlighted on our dedicated campaign page

Prior to the flooding event in late December 2022, tourism in the two regions was worth a combined $436 million and directly employing 2,800 people across both the Riverland and Murray River, Lakes & Coorong.


RIVER REVIVAL VOUCHERS

Expected to inject millions into the communities hit hard by the Murray River flood, more than 25,000 vouchers will be released over three rounds in 2023. 

With values of $50, $100 and $200, vouchers can be used for experiences and accommodation in the Riverland and Murray River, Lakes & Coorong regions.

The vouchers have been timed and staggered to allow for tourism operators to be ready to welcome the boost in visitation by voucher holders. 

The Expressions of Interest for tourism businesses to participate in round one has now closed. 

Key dates for round one: 

  • Ballot open: Monday 27 March 2023 - Wednesday 29 March 2023 
  • Ballot draw: Thursday 30 March 
  • Booking period: Thursday 30 March – Friday 28 April
  • Travel period: Friday 31 March – Thursday 29 June 

Consumers can register their interest in receiving information about the River Revival Vouchers at southaustralia.com/voucher.  

For operator FAQs, see below. 

HOW TO AMPLIFY

Like all other campaigns, this needs your support for it to reach its true potential. Find below an industry toolkit and some suggestions on how to leverage your own tourism business and marketing with this campaign:

Access the campaign assets for your marketing and owned channels from the River Revival Asset Toolkit.

If you'd like to explore further ways on how to amplify the message, check out our 'Rise Up for our River' Guide, including pre-designed Canva templates for both Instagram and Facebook posts, as well as Instagram and Facebook stories.  

Align your digital marketing with our ‘Rise Up for our River’ campaign by sharing the hero video and other assets such as imagery on your own channels.

For social media, be sure to tag @SouthAustralia and #SeeSouthAustralia to increase the number of people viewing your content.

A newspaper full wrap appeared in the The Sunday Mail on Sunday 12 March, which can be displayed in your window/premises. We encourage your local community to do the same. 

 

Use these key campaign messages in your own communications and include examples of your own curious and unique locations and experiences.

Some examples:

‘FEEL’ HEADLINE EXAMPLE
The Murray River, Lakes & Coorong is calling you to treasure it, rediscover it and explore it.

The Riverland is calling you to treasure it, rediscover it and explore it.

‘THINK’ HEADLINE EXAMPLE
[INSERT REGION/TOWNSHIP] needs your support  

There's never been a better time to visit our river regions and Rise Up for our River. 

‘DO’ HEADLINE EXAMPLE
Rise Up for our River

Book now and be part of the revival.

Ensure your Australian Tourism Data Warehouse (ATDW) listing is up-to-date and promotes your tourism business or experience to its full potential. Remember, this will be showcased not only by southaustralia.com but by up to 260 other distributors of ATDW content.

For information about how to get the most from your ATDW listing, see our ATDW Support & Marketing Hub.



FAQs

OPERATOR PROCESSES AND OFFERS

The Expressions of Interest for tourism businesses to participate in round one has now closed. 

Operators will not be charged any commission or fees to participate in the River Revival Voucher program.

If the participating operator is a registered user of one of the following payment gateways, the campaign portal allows consumer payments for bookings to be made directly through those gateways: (a) PayPal; (b) Stripe; (c) Braintree; (d) eWay and (e) Square.

There may be fees associated with a participating operator accepting a pre-payment from a consumer at the time of booking using one of these gateways and the tour operator will be solely responsible for those fees. Operators are encouraged to check with their preferred payment gateway as to what those fees are.

No. However if the operator chooses to subscribe to the Nabooki premium platform, additional fees and charges may apply and be payable by the operator, as determined by Nabooki.

If you use Redzy as your booking system, it will integrate with the Nabooki system. For other booking and reservation systems, there is currently no integration.

Consumers will be directed to southaustralia.com/voucher for all information about the River Revival Vouchers.

To make a booking, consumers will be redirected to a booking platform hosted within the SATC’s consumer website (rivervouchers.southaustralia.com) where they will be able to view all available offers across the three voucher categories. The consumer will be able to filter the campaign offers by region, voucher type, or experience/accommodation price. Consumers can then click through to their chosen offer to make a booking, apply their voucher code as a discount, and where required, make payment for the remaining balance (the difference between the experience/accommodation price less the voucher discount). Operators will have discretion to offer and accept pre-payment at the time of booking.

The rebate is payable upon a consumer completing a booking during the travel period in accordance with a booking made with the participating operator and without cancellation. For clarity, where a booking is made, and a consumer does not complete the experience/stay, the participating operator is not eligible for the rebate.

To notify of the completion of the booking, the participating operator is required to log into its account within the campaign portal, locate the relevant booking on the dashboard and mark the customer as “checked-in”.

Once the customer has been checked-in, Nabooki will issue a recipient created tax invoice (RCTI) and will automatically facilitate processing of the voucher rebate within the stipulated timeframe.

The voucher rebate will be paid to the participating operators bank account within 30 days from the customers check-in date.

If you do not opt in to use recipient created tax invoices (RCTI), you will be required to issue your own tax invoices to Naked Bookings Pty Ltd t/a Nabooki prior to receiving voucher rebate payments. These invoices should include individual voucher numbers as a reference and be emailed to [email protected]. Any delay in providing a valid tax invoice may result in delayed reimbursement of the voucher rebate.

The campaign Terms and Conditions are mandatory and must be accepted by the tour operator in order to participate in the campaign. 

Yes, absolutely! We encourage you to value-add to encourage consumers to stay longer, spend more and return for repeat visits.

Once operators have had their applications accepted, and their offers successfully loaded within the campaign portal, the SATC will share River Revival Voucher branded assets to be used across social and digital media of participating operators.

The SATC strongly encourages operators who apply to participate in the campaign or are seeking alternative ways to leverage the campaign, to review all of their digital marketing channels, including their ATDW listings.

The program will not pull data directly from the ATDW, but we expect an increase of tour searches on southaustralia.com. It is therefore in your best interest to have your product presented with the most relevant, up-to-date content and imagery within your product listing and individual tour types.

For more information on how to optimise your ATDW listing, visit tourism.sa.gov.au/support/atdw.

Yes, operators may wish to offer an additional discount off their regular price. For example, if an operator’s regular price is $200, it may be offered at a special promotional price of $175, which would then become $75 when a $100 voucher is applied. In this example, the $25 discount off the usual retail price is fully funded by the operator.

It is important to consider the best available offer for the consumer. Once pricing is loaded into the campaign portal, it cannot be altered or amended. For example, lowering the price because bookings are low is not permitted.

It is certainly not mandatory to provide a discount to be involved in the River Revival Program.

Each tourism business may choose to offer a maximum of three (3) offers.

The SATC will not pay the voucher rebate in circumstances where a consumer cancels.

Operators should clearly outline their cancellation policies and provide these terms and conditions for upload on the campaign portal during the onboarding process. These policies will be visible to the consumer during the booking process. The operator will be at liberty to enforce these cancellation policies and fees (where applicable) directly to the consumer. A consumer is not entitled to utilise the value of the voucher to cover any cancellation fees.

We will always do our best to encourage unavoidable cancellations to reschedule to a later date, but operators acknowledge this may not be possible.


ABOUT THE PROGRAM AND VOUCHERS

Consumers will need to enter a ballot and be successful in the draw to be able to obtain a River Revival Voucher.

Details about how eligible consumers can obtain a voucher are available at southaustralia.com/voucher.

Residents of South Australia, and Victoria who are 18 years and over. Terms and conditions apply and will be made available prior to launch.

Bookings for the River Revival Vouchers will open on Thursday 30 March 2023, upon release of unique voucher codes to consumers. The booking period is Thursday 30 March 2023 to Friday 28 April 2023 (inclusive).

The travel period is Friday 31 March 2023 to Tuesday 29 June 2023 (inclusive), bookable seven days a week including Saturdays, the Easter period and the April school holidays.

The River Revival Vouchers can be used only on participating hosted experiences and accommodation of an equal or higher value. This means:

  • $50 voucher can be applied to experiences valued at $50 or more.
  • $100 vouchers can be applied to accommodation valued at $100 or more for a one-night stay including Saturday.
  • $200 vouchers can be applied to accommodation valued at $200 or more for a two-night minimum stay, including Saturday.


$750 houseboat vouchers will be available from Round 2 and 3 due to most houseboat operators not being operational for Round 1. However, houseboat operators who are ready to take bookings in Round 1 are highly encouraged to take part in the $100 and/or $200 accommodation voucher category for consumers to redeem against houseboat holidays.

Yes, the River Revival Vouchers will be redeemable seven days a week.

However, operators may apply their own block-out dates if and where applicable, for example, a public holiday, or a traditionally sold-out date. This may be done during the onboarding process with Nabooki after your application has been approved.

Nabooki successfully supported eight rounds of the Great State Voucher program. The company will facilitate the River Revival Voucher distribution, consumer bookings and redemptions, and operator rebates.

Nabooki will be responsible for gathering campaign offers and associated terms and conditions from all Riverland and Murray River, Lakes & Coorong operators registered to participate in the campaign. Nabooki will also act as SATC’s agent in facilitating payment of voucher rebates to Riverland and Murray River, Lakes & Coorong operators participating in the campaign.

Nabooki will also assist the SATC in servicing consumer and operator enquiries during the campaign.


CRITERIA (INCLUSIONS AND EXCLUSIONS)

Yes. However, you will need to provide a minimum value. To do this you can offer your experience for two, three, four or five people (or a family) or other value adds, or a combination of both within reason. We will not accept adding additional people beyond five to make up the $50 value.

Whilst value adds are allowable, it’s important to remember that the focus in all cases must be on the hosted and guided experience and this is where the most value should lie.

Yes. However, you will need to provide a minimum value.

$100 accommodation vouchers are for single night stays. If your accommodation is under $100 for one night stay other value adds may be added within reason. Alternatively, you may look at multiple night stays and participate in the $200 minimum of two-night stay category.

$200 accommodation vouchers are for a minimum of two-night stays. If your accommodation is under $200 for a minimum of two-nights other value adds may be added at the discretion of the SATC.

Whilst value adds are allowable, it’s important to remember that the focus in all cases must be on the hosted and guided experience and this is where the most value should lie.

Travel agents booking clients into third-party tours are not eligible for the River Recovery Voucher subsidy.

If you are a travel agent that also runs your own tours (either with your own tour vehicles, own itineraries or with your own hosts / guides), you may be eligible to apply, provided you meet all other eligibility criteria.

Travel agents not eligible to be listed are encouraged to get involved by helping their clients to make their River Revival Voucher booking (noting that no commission will be payable) and then building other elements of a package around it to earn commission on the additional components. This is provided by way of suggestion and is not to be construed as advice or direction.

If your business does not meet the eligibility criteria, you may look to engage with tour operators that service your region and investigate the possibility of including your product within their experience or accommodation, as part of their offering. All bookings would then be via the participating operator.

No. The ATDW is the most exhaustive list of tourism operators in South Australia and is used by industry across the country. We encourage you to register for the ATDW which can provide valuable exposure to your business. A listing will also ensure that you are considered for future support programs and/or can be promoted by the SATC.

For more information and to register on the ATDW, please visit tourism.sa.gov.au/support/atdw

No, the system is reliant on pre-bookings for operators to enable the SATC to authenticate and track voucher usage.

Generally, no. Standard tastings, flights and paddles in cellar doors, breweries, distilleries which incur a tasting fee will not be considered unless they qualify as a hosted experience. Any tasting experiences which have a fee redeemable on purchase cannot be considered.

To be considered, the experience must be hosted – that is, where staff are dedicated to deliver the experience and provide interpretation throughout. If staff provide this interpretation only as an introduction or when they/the venue is not busy, the experience is not eligible as the hosting element cannot be guaranteed for the duration of the experience.

Yes, provided they are guided tours, and meet other eligibility criteria.

Whilst we are not encouraging new product development, in some circumstances it may be suitable to tweak an existing product to cater for the voucher audience.

If you are an experiences or accommodation operator intending to launch a new experience or accommodation with a long-term view of providing this offering, then you may like to utilise the campaign as a platform to promote your new offering.

Yes. They will need to meet all other eligibility criteria.

The program will not accept point-to-point transfers or hourly charters where consumers purely book the vehicle with a driver for a set period. It is not intended to be used on transfers for a day/night out, or for wedding vehicles for example.

If you offer leisure tourism focused tours as a usual part of your business, i.e. a driver hosts and is integral to delivering the experience and is not simply driving from point-to-point, and you organise at least part of the itinerary for your clients, you may submit an application for consideration.

No. The objective of this program is to get people travelling in the coming few months and not putting it off to a later date. If a tour doesn’t happen, then impacted guests need to be rescheduled to a different date within the travel period.



CONTACT

For operator enquiries relating to the River Revival Voucher onboarding process, please email Nabooki at [email protected] or call 08 7093 9777.

For other enquiries, please contact [email protected]