Introduction: As Australia slowly (or rapidly) winds down in response to Covid-19 everyone is scrambling to ensure they have sufficient financial supports in place to weather this storm. Some will have a view to the future and how to recover from the economic king hit we will all have taken. One of the many problems facing Broome (and other destinations) will be a lack of positive online content to keep the destination in people’s minds. Many local websites with event calendars have stamped the events “Cancelled due to Covid” or removed the events completely so that the calendar is empty. Everyone understands things have been cancelled, even without stamping the event cancelled, everyone would know that it can’t go ahead. So when there are large numbers of people practising quarantining at home and looking for positive escapes online, its very difficult for them to see what a positive holiday in Broome could look like.

A Different Approach: SoBroome is taking a different approach. We want to keep sharing positive social media about Broome, even though that will need to focus on the natural environment for the next few months as the regions lock down and there are less visitors. Only a month before this crisis we launched a new and upgraded SoBroome website with a visual trip planner that allowed users to add accommodation, events, tours, cafes etc to a trip. All the content is added to a user’s trip on a specific page with the content visually sorted under headings. All trips can be posted to social media and shared with friends.

#VirtualBroome: We have re-purposed our Trip Planner to a Virtual Trip Planner, so that people can put together a Virtual Trip to Broome and share online with their friends. This is how the Virtual Trip looks once shared to Social Media. We have not stamped any events with “cancelled”, rather we have added “Available for Virtual Trips Only” to each of the event titles. This way people can still see the rich cultural and event life that would normally take place in Broome throughout the year.

How We All Can Help:

1. If your business is not listed on SoBroome, list it as a free business listing as we will upgrade it to Premium at no cost for as long as this crisis continues.
2. If you were planning to hold an event in Broome, list it on our event calendar so people can add it to their “virtual trips”.
3. Take a look at our Broome Experiences and maybe submit something you think visitors should experience https://www.sobroome.com.au/experience
4. Become a guest author on our Blog Page https://www.sobroome.com.au/whats-up-broome
5. Create your own #VirtualBroome trip and share it on your social media.
6. Encourage your own Social Media followers to create #VirtualBroome trips.