A beautiful slogan one day … gone the next

IN THE face of fierce competition from national and international holiday destinations, Queensland's tourism body is about to ditch the slogan that has come to define the Sunshine State.

After 12 years, Queensland's hallmark slogan, ''Beautiful one day, perfect the next'' has run its course and is set to be replaced at the end of the month with a new slogan and marketing campaign, Tourism Queensland's regional director for the tropics and the Great Barrier Reef, Jeff Gillies, announced to The Age.

''We're in a launch pattern for a new brand,'' Mr Gillies said. ''We're about to refresh the Queensland identity.''

It's a gamble to change something that's served so well, Mr Gillies acknowledged, but it had to be balanced with the need to keep the marketing message fresh.

Tourism Queensland solicited the industry's views, engaged advertising agency Clemenger BBDO to come up with its new slogan and campaign and has tested it with focus groups, he said.

His organisation spent 18 months researching why people holidayed in Queensland to distil what holidaymakers were looking for.

''It [the new campaign] taps into the key attributes of the weather warmth and the warmth of the people.''

The campaign will involve a national and global launch around a new slogan, posters, commercials and online strategies.

But it's not as if Victorians have lost the lust for a Queensland holiday. According to the latest figures, in the 12 months to March 1.4 million Victorians visited Queensland.

In that time, 281,000 Melburnians flew to the Gold Coast , 157,000 to Cairns and 142,000 to the Sunshine Coast.