Case Study: Phillip Island achieves more weekend visitors with Hardhat Digital

Phillip Island converts day-trippers into long-weekenders with Hardhat Digital after losing over 500,000 visitors

Hardhat Digital was engaged by Destination Phillip Island, the tourism body for a region recognized as Australia's second most tourism-dependent shire, to address a critical challenge. Following pandemic lockdowns that caused a massive loss of over half a million annual visitors, the customer needed to reposition the island from a day-trip destination to a must-visit weekend getaway for the domestic market.

The solution from Hardhat Digital was the "Phillip Island 101" campaign, which leveraged the island's exact landmass of 101km². This created a vibrant storytelling framework that assigned numbers to each square kilometre to showcase the breadth of experiences. The campaign successfully boosted visitor numbers and attracted more interstate holiday-goers. It was widely endorsed by locals and has ongoing potential due to its scalable concept.

Phillip Island