FAQ

The Australian Tourism Data Warehouse (ATDW) is an organisation established by all the states and territories tourism organisations (STOs) in partnership with Tourism Australia. ATDW manages a database called ATDW-Online that acts as a central collection of nationally standardised information on tourism businesses and events, and enables third parties (distributors) to display that information on their consumer facing websites.

Many local regional tourism sites receive their product information from ATDW. For a full list of ATDW distributors, see here.

An ATDW listing for your business will provide valuable and cost effective online exposure. ATDW shares your product listing and details with a larger audience network through websites, mobile applications and portals, so more consumers will see your product, and potentially book it. It’s a great way for tourism operators with limited promotion budgets to publicise their services.

You only need to enter your information once, and your listing will feature on your STO consumer facing website and Tourism Australia’s website, australia.com.  In addition, your listing will be made available to ATDW’s network of over 250 distribution partners which can be found on the ATDW website.  These distributor websites, generating over five million pageviews per month, may engage in digital marketing activity from time to time which as a result, can achieve increased exposure for your ATDW listing.

Note: that while distributor websites draw on ATDW-Online content to display tourism products, not all distributors display every category type stored in ATDW-Online or all information that you provide within your listing. This is at the discretion of the distributor, their needs, design and strategy of their website.

ATDW is open to tourism businesses or events operating in Australia that provide a direct service or experience to the leisure tourist (some exclusions apply).

You can list in one of eight listing categories, including:

• Accommodation
• Attraction
• Event
• Food & Drink
• Hire
• General Service
• Tour
• Transport

Each ATDW category has specific eligibility criteria and these are explained in more detail here.   Contact your STO if you require further clarification.

Your listing may have been added by your STO, local Visitor Information Centre or a previous owner or employee. To update your details, or if you do not wish to appear, just contact your STO to obtain log in details or request your entry to be removed.

Listings expire after not being updated within a 12 month period, therefore it is likely that your listing has expired. If you know your login details to ATDW-Online, please login and check if your listing appears on your dashboard, if so, you can re-activate an expired listing by updating the listing content and sending it for review.

In other cases, we may have identified that your listing did not comply with the eligibility requirements or possibly has not met minimum mandatory standards and hence been disabled. In this case, please contact your STO to find out more or ask how to re-activate your listing.

If the website is a distributor of ATDW content, you will be able to correct this information by updating your ATDW listing through ATDW-Online.

Check this list of distributors who are using ATDW content for their websites. If the website in question is not on this list, it means that the information has been sourced from a third party and not from the ATDW. You will need to contact that website directly to update the incorrect information.

The ATDW corporate website shows all ATDW listings, you can check here to see if you can find your business. Visit http://www.atdw.com.au/our-listings/ and search for your listing name.  If you cannot find your business listing, you will need to register your business on ATDW.

If you are unsure if you have previously registered with ATDW, you can check by opening the ATDW-Online login page at www.atdw-online.com.au and enter your email address and select the ‘Forgot password’? option.

If you are registered, you will receive an email containing a temporary password and link allowing to change the password and login again.

If you are not previously registered, you will not receive an email and can proceed to register as a new user.

Visit the ATDW website and click the ‘Register Now’ button to access the ATDW-Online Platform registration page, or enter the direct link: www.atdw-online.com.au

The first step is to select your account type. If you want to create an ATDW listing you select the ‘Tourism Operator’ option and click ‘Continue’.

The ‘Web Developer’ option is for ATDW distribution website partners to register to gain access to ATDW listings.

To register, you will first be asked to enter your organisation or business details, including ABN (if you have one), name, address, phone and email.

You will then be prompted to create a user account for yourself. This is the account you will personally login with, you will enter your name, phone, email and create a password.

Passwords are to be at least 8 characters and contain at least one letter and one number.

Lastly, read and accept the terms and conditions to finalise your registration.

Remember to save your login details so you don’t forget them! However, if you do, you can easily recover your password.

If your password for ATDW-Online is not working, click on the ‘Forgot password?’ link on the ATDW-Online login page at https://atdw-online.com.au. You will be sent an email with a password reset link. Open this email and click on the Reset password button and follow the prompts. Make sure your password is at least 8 characters (including one letter and one number).

If you see a ‘user not found’ error message, contact your STO for assistance.

ATDW-Online allows for multiple users per account.

If you are the primary account holder you can register additional users to your account through the ‘Account’ tab when you are logged in to ATDW-Online. Open the ‘Account’ tab and click the ‘Add another user’ link. This will open the new user registration screen for you to enter the email, name and phone number of the new user. They will then be sent an email advising they have been registered which contains a temporary password and link to login.

If the user that you want to add is already registered in ATDW-Online, you will receive an error advising that they already exist in the system. Please contact your STO who can add existing users to your account.

The ATDW-Online account for your organisation allows you to create and manage as many listings as you require. Click the ‘Add new listing’ button on your ‘Listings’ dashboard tab to create a new ATDW listing.

If you have multiple listings that are currently associated with separate ATDW accounts, these can also be linked together on request, so you can switch easily between listings that you manage. Please contact your STO with the listing and organisation account details of the other listings in order to link them.

The listings can either be merged into the one account, or you can add multiple users to the existing accounts which you need to access. Your STO will explain the differences to each approach.

Once you’ve registered with ATDW, you can update your account details at any time. For example, if you need to change your organisation or user address or contact details– you can add this information whenever you want to through the Account tab.

Setting up your profile can be quick and easy!

Make sure you have ready:

• Your business ABN (if applicable)
• A brief description of your business or event, similar to anything on your website or brochures (refrain from using Caps lock)
• Contact information and social media links
• Key details such as opening hours, prices, facilities, accessibility services or event date and time
• Photos – professional or smartphone photos are suitable (photos need to be least 1600 x 1200 pixels in size and no larger than 10mb).

The more information and better quality photos that you provide in your listing, will ensure it is more appealing to consumers.  Once you have submitted your listing, it will be reviewed and published in up to 5 business days.

To aid in selecting the most appropriate category for your business or event, please review the listing eligibility criteria (see link at the bottom left of screen when logged into ATDW-Online).

Each listing category has different requirements, so it is important that you select the correct category for your business or event to ensure that consumers can find your product.

ATDW listings are categorised into one of the following categories:

• Accommodation
• Attraction
• Event
• Food & Drink
• Hire
• General Service
• Tour
• Transport

Additional definitions and sub-categories can be found here: http://www.atdw.com.au/distributors/our-content-database/

A new listing can take around 30 minutes to complete. Click on the Listings tab, then Add new listing, and choose a listing category appropriate to your business or event.  Simply work your way through the screens step-by-step to enter the data that will form your listing.   Help text is available throughout the platform on the right hand side of each field to guide you. This is best viewed using a desktop or laptop computer.

Note: Some steps are required as mandatory in order to send your listing for review, while others are optional and can be completed at a later stage, if needed. The platform will tell you when you need to complete a field before proceeding to the next one. All the required steps are displayed with a star next to them in the orange menu or show required in the section header on each screen.

Once you have entered all your applicable information and completed the required steps, click ‘summary’ to review your listing and then ‘send for review’ to send your listing for review by the quality assurance team.

You will receive an email advising when your listing has passed quality assurance and is published.  If you do not pass quality assurance, you will be advised by email that your listing was rejected with details of the items you need to change to meet the quality standards.

When describing your product, text should be kept short and simple with the most important content written at the beginning of the description.
Keep these points in mind when writing all product descriptions:

1. The product name, key points and highlights should be positioned at the beginning of the description
2. Progress into further detail throughout the description by providing additional information about activities and services provided at the product/destination
3. Conclude the description with transport information and other useful hints
4. Editorial content should always refer to the product/destination in the third person and the reader/consumer in the second person. This ensures that an objective point of view is always conveyed to readers. The third person is “he, she, they, their, his, hers, him, her”. The second person is “you and your”

For further information on how to optimize your ATDW listing, click here

Yes. It’s worth spending extra time preparing your description to make sure you include all the necessary information so that potential visitors will finds your product alluring. You can use a text editor to create the content and spell and grammar check it for accuracy. Then paste it into the Product Description field when you’re happy with it. Remember, it can only be 200 words or less.  For more advice on writing a great description, click here

You cannot include any linked text in text fields such as the Product Description and other free text fields.   There are specific fields in ATDW-Online where you should add your website URL address, Booking URL, email address, and other social media platform links.

Clicking out of the field will save the information you have entered, then press the ‘next step’ button to move to the next screen. Alternatively, you can navigate to any other screen through the orange menu and the system will save your information.

Yes, ATDW-Online has a clone listing feature which copies the details of one of our existing listings into a new draft listing for you to modify and send for review.

You can access this option when you click ‘Add new listing’ in your listings dashboard and select the clone listing option, or alternatively when you have a listing open that you want to clone, click the cog icon and select ‘Clone listing’ from the more options available.

This feature is especially helpful for event managers who have the same touring event held in many locations or across many dates.

Look at what the error message tells you and try to respond based on the information provided, it will usually outline the field or screen that has the problem and what the problem is. Often the error simply specifies that you have not completed one of the required or mandatory fields. If in doubt or you can’t move past the error, you should contact your STO.

Outside of business hours, you can email a screenshot or provide details of the error in an email to the STO and they will assist as soon as possible.

You will not be able to ‘Send for review’ if the progress bar in the top right hand corner of the page is red, meaning not all mandatory required steps are met. Click on the progress bar to see which mandatory steps need to be completed and take the appropriate action.

New listings and updates can take up to 5 business days to be approved. Once you receive the automated email advising your listing has been approved, you can generally expect to see your information on your state’s tourism site the following day. Please keep these timeframes in mind during your planning.

Note: some websites may take a little longer to update your information depending on their processes. If your listing is not updated or published on a website after 1 week, contact your STO for assistance.

Listings can be rejected for a number of different reasons. You will receive an email explaining which changes need to be made if your listing does not meet ATDW’s National Criteria and quality standards. Make the advised changes and resubmit your listing for approval.

Occasionally businesses or events are entered into ATDW which do not meet the eligibility criteria or have a leisure tourist focus. If you have received that message from your STO, then the ATDW is unfortunately not the promotional channel for you.

This is a temporary glitch that occurs when Google Maps needs to be updated on your computer. Please restart your browser, and the view of the map on the Summary Page will be restored.

It is best practice to regularly review and update your ATDW listing, especially if any details related to your business have changed. It is important to keep your listing accurate, up to date, interesting and appealing to engage tourist interest. It is also important to check that your photos are up to date and the correct size.

At a minimum, businesses are required to update their listing at least once a year to ensure that potential visitors are seeing accurate information. It is advised to update your listing whenever:

1. any of your details change. This includes prices, opening times and contact details,
2. you have new photos or videos to share, or
3. you have new features, refurbishments or permanent displays to share.

(Note:  that once it is sent for review, it is locked until your listing passes QA, usually only a couple of days.)

Even if your description, facilities and prices remain unchanged you will need to login, click ‘update’ and then click ‘send for review’, ensuring your listing remains on ATDW-Online and other websites for another 12 months.  Email notifications will let you know when your listing is about to expire.

Another way to regularly update your listing is with seasonal changes to ensure that your photos and description are promoting the current season as the highlight, ie cozy fireplaces and snow photos for winter and bright sunny vibrant beach photos in summer.

The listing will expire and be automatically removed from the websites displaying it. Regular updates ensure the information on ATDW Distributor websites is current and useful for travelers. If you are unable to update your listing for any reason, contact your STO for assistance.

If your listing has already expired, you are able to reactivate it. Login to the ATDW-Online dashboard and you will still be able to view the expired listing under the ‘listings’ tab. To reactive the listing click the ‘update’ button, review the listing content and make any required changes, then press ‘send for review’ (and pay as required) to submit for publishing approval.

When you have updated your listing, make sure you have clicked ‘send for review’. Not clicking send for review, means those changes have not been reviewed or published. The updates or new information you have entered has been saved, however they will not go live on our distributor websites until the listing has been sent for quality assurance review and approved.

You will be able to tell if your listing is live from the status of the listing. Listing is Live means all listing content is available for publishing on distributor websites. Live: With changes not yet submitted means that some changes you have made recently have not been sent for review or published.

ATDW Distributors are contractually obligated to update the ATDW information on their websites at least once a week.  Some ATDW distributors display this content in real time, where you can view immediate changes, however most distributors download the content in a batch format and update nightly or weekly.  As such, we suggest waiting 7 days before viewing your information on some websites.

If you notice that your information is still not showing or is incorrect after 1 week, please contact your STO to advise.

To remove a listing from ATDW, login and select the relevant listing and click ‘update’. Click on the cog icon (looks like a gear/wheel)  located at the top right corner of your window (under the STO Logo ) and click “Request to disable”. The listing will go into a Disablement Queue to be actioned within 1 – 5 business days. If your listing needs removing urgently, please contact your STO.

Yes, ATDW listings can be translated into both Traditional and Simplified Chinese. To translate your listing click on the cog icon to open the more options menu and select ‘Manage translations’ under the Translations header. This will show you if you have previous translations for your listing by automatically adjusting the price for a new or update of the translation.

The cost of a new product listing translation is $55.00 AUD including GST. Translation updates are less at approximately $16.50.

Note: There are only a handful of ATDW distributor websites that publish content in Chinese, the majority of ATDW distributors publish ATDW content in English.

Please contact your STO if you require more information about translations or to confirm if their website displays Chinese content to assess the benefit for your business or event.

ATDW-Online allows you to add your preferred booking URL link to your listing, that is, the link to your online booking engine such as Booking Button, V3, or ResOnline or preferred third party booking provider website.

Note: Your booking URL link may not be displayed on your distributor websites, as some distributors may have arrangements with specific booking providers for their site and use that inventory on priority.

You can leave these questions blank or return at a later date to add more information.

When creating your listing, the mandatory steps appear on the top left and are indicated with a star.  There is a navigation bar at the top right of the page which indicates how many steps you have left to complete.

If you have created a listing and selected the wrong category, you will need to disable your listing by clicking on the cog on the top right hand side of your dashboard.  Select ‘Disable my listing’.  You can then proceed and start a new listing in the correct category.  

Tip: To save you the effort of retyping a whole new listing, it may be worth creating a new listing first and copying the information across, before disabling the incorrect listing.

If you have a problem, please contact your STO.

You can only have one Organisation Address per listing, however if your Address has changed since creating your listing, you can select this to change it. 

A list of possible addresses will appear in a suggested text drop-down menu and you can select the correct address.  If your address does not appear, you can manually enter it.   

When you sign up, we ask you to upload photos of your product. This is because we know consumers love browsing through photos when looking for travel ideas. We recommend that you upload a variety of photos that showcase the best of your business or event such as both the inside and the outside of your property/ product, people interacting with your business, and landscape surroundings. They don’t need to be professional photos – photos with a smartphone will still give your guests a good impression of the space.  For more tips, click here

Minimum photo requirements (pixels)

1. Dimensions of at least 1600 pixels wide x 1200 pixels high (landscape orientation only). You can upload a portrait photo however it will be cropped to landscape orientation.
2. All photos must be .jpg or .png format and be no larger than 10MB in file size.
3. Posters, collages or photos with text or those which do not reflect the business will not be accepted.
4. Your listing requires at least one photo which meets the criteria above
5. Alternative text is required on all photos.

ATDW-Online’s photo uploading tool indicates which photos do not meet the requirements, as well as assisting you to crop and rotate any suitable photos to meet the required dimensions. Click here to see a demonstration video.

You can upload up to 10 photos of your product which will be displayed in an image gallery. Navigate to the photos tab in your listing, you can either drag and drop or select the photo(s) you wish to upload from your computer files. Once selected, your photo(s) will open in the photo editor for you to review the focal point, crop and rotation of the photo. Add information to the photo including a caption, alternative text (alt text), photographer and copyright details. Once all details are correct, click save on each photo to save it to your listing.

To re-order your photos, simply click and drag them into the desired order with your hero photo (denoted by a star icon) being the first.

For best results, load photos in their biggest size and quality. You can use the focal point tool to capture the best part of your photo by clicking and dragging the grid over your photo and releasing the mouse once you are happy with your selection.

Photos can take a while to load depending on their size, your internet access and coverage. You should see an error message appear if the photo is not suitable.

To delete a photo, just click on the X on the summary screen.  To re-order your photos, simply select and drag it to the new position. The photo with the star on it will appear first on ATDW distributor websites.

The size minimum for photos was set quite high so that the photos of your business or event will always look the best they possibly can on websites showing large image designs that cover across the whole screen. Smaller sized photos on these designs may appear blurry or distorted which will not portray your business or event in the best light. The image size standards are generally able to be taken on mobile phone cameras back to iPhone3 and on SLR and pocket digital cameras.

 If you have had a professional photographer take photos for you that are not at the minimum size, it is best to contact them to request copies of the photos that you wish to upload in larger file sizes. Photographers will often reduce the size of the photos they give you to fit on a USB or other file transfer device.

ATDW’s content guidelines have been set in collaboration with each of the STOs and based upon the needs of their websites. Over years of experience and review we have found that many photos with text or brochure type designs are often cropped or displayed inappropriately on some websites, as not all webpage designs are the same and hence the photo size varies on each one.

ATDW content and therefore your ATDW listing information will be shared with many different websites and to ensure that your photos look the best they can on all these websites, ATDW warrants that our content is consistent by having all photos meet certain standards and formats.

This enables website graphic designers and developers to easily design websites and to safeguard that your photos are displayed appropriately. Most website designs showcase photos in a landscape format, hence portrait photos were often cropped, and the main content cut off.

There is no cost to list your business on the ATDW (with the exception of Queensland and Victoria operators who are charged a nominal fee by their STO).

Please enquire with those STOs directly regarding their pricing model and if your business is eligible for any discounts.

If you have been asked to pay during your registration process, it means that you have incorrectly selected the wrong account type by registering as a Distributor and not a Tour Operator. 

In this case you should click on the ‘Cancel registration’ button which can be found at the bottom of the screen and start a fresh registration.

Note: You may use the same email address to re-register.

ATDW listings get free promotion on a distributor’s website or digital channel as a condition of the ATDW Terms and Conditions agreed when registering with the ATDW. Occasionally ATDW distributors contact operators with offers of premium advertising space on their websites, reservation services or other online marketing opportunities. Any offer you receive to upgrade or change your listing should be considered on its merits to ensure it meets your business needs.

 All ATDW distributors must follow the ATDW Distributor Communications Guidelines. These guidelines aim to protect the interests of tourism operators, especially from irrelevant, poor quality or unsolicited offers.

If you have any concerns about an offer you have received please contact your STO. If you do not wish to receive further offers or updates from a distributor, you can ‘unsubscribe’ from their email service.

From time to time, ATDW issues emails advising that your listing is expiring for renewal or if you have started drafting a listing you may receive a prompt to advise that you need to finish it.

However, you may receive unsolicited emails which have not been sent from ATDW, your STO or our network of ATDW Distributors.  Please review all emails for payment you receive carefully and do not pay for anything you are not sure what it is. Contact your State Tourism Organisation (STO) if you receive any unsolicited emails or are unsure on an emails legitimacy.

• Tourism Operators have previously been targeted with scam invoices. These should be discarded. These companies operate under a variety of names (very similar to STO’s) and they tend to confuse operators into paying for a listing.
• Unless you belong to an STO who charges a nominal fee to list (QLD & VIC), or have specifically signed up with an ATDW Distribution Partner to enhance your listing, at no stage should you be receiving emails or letters seeking payment for your listing.

ATDW provides tourism operators with an analytics dashboard that allows businesses to view their listing performance across the ATDW distributor network (websites that are displaying their information).

Go to the ‘Stats’ tab in the menu to view the ATDW listing stats report for your listing(’s) performance across the entire ATDW distribution network. These reports are updated on a daily basis and can be accessed at any time throughout the year. You can also update the date range of the report to suit your needs and export to PDF.

Yes, ATDW-Online is accessible on mobile, tablet, laptop or desktop. Larger screens provide the best user experience. On small devices or small monitors, the main black menu items usually displayed in full on the left hand side of the screen, collapses to the top of the screen.

If this has happened on your laptop or desktop, try to reduce your screen zoom to 90% or lower until the menu bar tabs are visible on the left side of your screen.

ATDW-Online can be accessed on a number of different browsers however we support Chrome, Internet Explorer, Safari and Firefox as the primary browsers. Meaning the application is tested and built to suit these browsers the best. If you are encountering issues on another browser, please try to re-open the application in one of those mentioned above and notify your STO of the issues so that we can rectify them.

ATDW-Online allows for the creation of a website widget that can be placed on any website to draw on other relevant ATDW business listings such as events. This widget is like a digital brochure rack for your business.

This is a free service and can be used in many ways such as:

1. For an event to provide event visitors information on the accommodation options available close to the event venue
2. For an accommodation provider to showcase the attractions and tours surrounding their hotel to encourage a longer length of stay
3. For local councils to market events occurring in their region.. For more information please click here or see the other questions on the widget below.

For assistance with registering, updating or uploading photos, please contact your relevant State Tourism Organisation (STO). Details of each STO can also be found on the ATDW-Online platform by clicking on the Contact Us link at the top right of each page.

We would love to hear your feedback on using our ATDW platform.

To send us your views, email [email protected]

Many ATDW distribution partners share your business and contact information, website URL and booking URL where applicable on their consumer facing webpages. Hence tourists browsing those sites would use that information to contact your business directly and/ or book through your own booking channels which you added to your ATDW listing. This can seem as though they are enquiring or booking direct,  and this will not be seen as an original lead from ATDW.

Unfortunately, ATDW are currently unable to track click through or conversion data from our third-party distributor partner sites, which would validate the number of enquiries or bookings made where the tourist has seen your listing on an ATDW partner website. This improvement is something that ATDW are working towards.

The Widget is a small snippet of code provided by ATDW that can be installed within any HTML based web page.  It contains specific functionality that can be installed to showcase ATDW listings onto your website. The widget just occupies a portion of your webpage (like a small window) and displays ATDW content (to your own choosing) in a simple list view.

Registered users of ATDW-Online Platform can create multiple widgets free of charge. You are not required to be an owner of ATDW listings to use widgets but your website must:

• Be primarily related to tourism/travel               AND/OR
• Be a destination or marketing organization

Choose the widget you want to display, then copy and past the HTML code into source code of your webpage. The content will be updated automatically once the widget is installed. Alternately, you can email the ATDW Widget code to your web developer who can add it to your site.

Note: Avoid altering the ATDW widget code as it might affect the functionality of the widget

Yes, multiple ATDW widgets can be displayed on same web page as long as they appear in a separate section of the web page i.e., by making use of HTML’s <div> tag.

Please see below a few examples of ATDW licensed distributors showcasing ATDW widgets

• https://www.victoria365.com.au
• http://www.starbusshuttle.com.au/attractions