How Destination North Coast builds stronger stakeholder engagement
About Destination North Coast
Destination North Coast (DNC) is the official tourism agency for the North Coast region of New South Wales, Australia. As one of six Destination Networks in NSW, DNC supports the state government’s ambition to grow the visitor economy by promoting sustainable, year-round tourism across the region.
Covering a vast and diverse area, the North Coast stretches from the Tweed region in the north to the Mid Coast in the south, including heritage-listed Lord Howe Island. The region combines major coastal hubs such as Byron Bay, Coffs Harbour and Port Macquarie with rural communities, villages and hinterland destinations.
Tourism plays a vital role in the regional economy, contributing an estimated AU$2.8 billion annually and accounting for around 12 percent of the North Coast’s gross regional product.
The challenge
DNC works closely with a wide range of stakeholders, including tourism operators, local councils and government partners. Their role includes:
- Attracting the right mix of domestic and international visitors
- Increasing visitation during low and off-peak seasons
- Encouraging visitor dispersal and spend across the region
- Supporting sustainable tourism growth
To do this effectively, DNC needed a central system to manage contacts, communications and engagement. As a geographically spread team that spends a lot of time on the road, access from anywhere was essential. The organisation also required a solution that was easy to use, affordable and fully managed, without relying on a large internal IT team.
Why Spotler
After reviewing several systems, DNC selected Spotler, formerly Really Simple Systems, to support their sales and marketing activities.
According to Industry Engagement Manager Jacquie Burnside, flexibility and support were key factors in the decision.
“As a newly formed organisation, we needed a cloud-based CRM we could access from anywhere. The fact that the system was managed by the supplier made a big difference for us.”
Local support also played an important role.
“Being able to pick up the phone and speak to someone locally gave us confidence straight away. We are a small organisation, so having real conversations about what we needed made the choice very easy.”
As a government-funded organisation, budget was another important consideration. Spotler’s flexible pricing allowed DNC to start small and scale usage over time as needs evolved.
Using Spotler for sales and marketing
DNC makes extensive use of Spotler’s integrated marketing capabilities to stay in regular contact with stakeholders across the region. The team uses email templates, contact segmentation and scheduled campaigns to deliver relevant updates and information.
The ability to track engagement has been especially valuable.
“Being able to see who has opened and clicked on emails means we can easily see who to follow up,” says Burnside. “Having everything in one system makes it very straightforward to work with and understand our data.”
Customisation and ease of use
To support segmentation and reporting, DNC added custom fields within the CRM. This allowed the team to tailor the system to their specific needs without complexity.
The intuitive interface and simple data entry meant the team required minimal training, leading to strong user adoption from the start. When support was needed, staff made use of Spotler’s help resources, including video guides and the online support hub.
Growing with Spotler
After two years of daily use, Spotler CRM has become a core part of DNC’s operations. The system is used to manage campaigns, tasks, visitor-related activity and key stakeholder relationships across the organisation.
“Whenever we have had an issue, the support team has been great at resolving it quickly,” Burnside explains. “We are very happy with our decision and are now looking to roll Spotler out further across the organisation.”
The result
With Spotler, Destination North Coast has gained a reliable, easy-to-use platform that supports better communication, clearer insight into engagement and a scalable foundation for future growth. This allows the team to focus on what matters most: building strong relationships and supporting a thriving, sustainable visitor economy across the North Coast.
What is marketing without a CRM?
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