The ATDW is an essential resource for and about Australian tourism businesses. It's an online database of information to be distributed to partner sites and an online marketplace for tourism information. The service has recently had a significant upgrade in the information it lists for businesses, which we will summarise in this blog. If you aren't familiar with ATDW yet and don't have an active listing, it basically works as a content tool, syndicating owner-generated data about tourism businesses across tourism peak websites. Listing on the ATDW is free and has some key benefits for business: it syncs with your Google my Business listing, gives you access to detailed analytics data and translates into several languages for your international audience.

A wide range of tourism ventures can have a business listing on the ATDW. One of the updated features is that you only need a single user account to create multiple category listings rather than having one for each category. The available categories are:

• Accommodation
• Attraction
• Destination
• Event
• Food and drink
• General services
• Hire
• Information services
• Journey
• Tours
• Transport

So how do you set up your listing? First you need to go to the website atdw-online.com.au click the register now box on the right hand side of the page, determine what your category is, register your business, and then submit your listing for review. Each application is reviewed for quality assurance by ATDW to ensure that minimum content standards are met. If your listing is approved it will appear in a couple of days. To see if you have been approved, check out your local tourism organisation, search on your business and see if you come up. Simple!

Here are some helpful pointers to get ready to create your listing and make it stand out. A pro tip is to have all the relevant info at hand before you start the listing process - things like URL links, social media channel links, images, videos, and content for your business description. Make sure your business description captures the essence of your business and talks directly to the target customers. You also need great images to visually tell your story and sell the experience.

Your images have to be the right size, 1600x1200 pixels to meet the ATDW minimum requirement. These have to be .jpgs without text or logos. The other key requirement is that the images have to be landscape not horizontal. Don’t forget to include the alt-text for your image to help SEO and accessibility for all people to find and enjoy your tourism product and services. Pictures that rate highly with ATDW feature people enjoying your product - again ideally representing your key customer demographic, that showcase your offering in a way that is a true representation of what you do. The ATDW also allows videos of up to a minute, these need to be uploaded from a YouTube of Vimeo account via a link rather than directly into the listing.

When asked for contact information, make sure you have your website, phone numbers, email address, booking URL and of course up-to-date operating hours included. ATDW also requires you display your accessibility status so people are aware of who is able to enjoy your offering, and gives you three levels of access to choose from.

Your listing once completed needs to be updated annually, and if this isn’t done it will be pulled down. Pop a note in the calendar before it comes due to give your listing a refresh, check images and details are correct and you are good to go for another year. If you are already on the ATDW, jump on and check out all the new features in the listing. If you’re ready to dive deeper into getting your ATDW listing as compelling as possible, watch the full presentation by Digital Coach Taihlaura from KingThing on all things ATDW, then follow along with the step-by-step video of how to set up your own listing.

Further information and additional step-by-step videos can be found on the Tourism Tasmania website.