THE Limestone Coast has continued to impress tourists from across the country and the world with visitor numbers remaining high.
As well as the region’s major attractions, the Limestone Coast will host a record number of festivals and events over the next 12 months.
More than 110 listings are already locked in on the region’s calendar with tourists from across the country and world expected to flock to Blue Lake city.
Limestone Coast Local Government Association tourism industry development manager Biddie Shearing said the vibrant region has recorded an increased number of visitors, with plenty more on their way.
“Most recent figures – to December 2017 – indicate the region attracted 594,000 visitors for the calendar year, with 20 to 30pc indicating they travelled to the region to take part in an organised event,” she said.
Results for the opening half of this year are expected to be even higher with major events like the Australian Sprintcar
Championship at Borderline Speedway, the Mount Gambier Fringe and Generations in Jazz attracting record participation.
Ms Shearing said local business owners and event organisers are in the perfect position to boost their profile and encourage others to visit the beautiful part of the world.
“We know the average length of stay in the region is 3.2 nights, so the ability to offer a full calendar of events with compelling reasons to stay longer will create significant flow on effects for the local economy,” she said.
“Given our geographical location midway between two major cities, there are also a number of major events occurring in Adelaide and Melbourne such as the Tour Down Under, tennis, Tasting Australia or the AFL that as a region we could be leveraging from in order to grow visitation.”
Witnessing the influx of tourists over the holiday period, Engelbrecht Cave manager Jan Coleman said days have been “full on” for the hard working staff.
“Easter was great, the lead-up to the long weekend was busier than last year and it has been fairly consistent throughout the Victorian school holidays and now the South Australian holidays,” she said.
“The major holiday periods are our busiest times of the year – over Christmas we were doing 12 tours a day and over Easter 10.”
However, Ms Coleman said weather and strict tourist schedules do put some pressure on the business.
“We have found that people visiting specifically for events sometimes do not have the time to visit the cave during their stay,” she said.
“Although we do see some and recently welcomed a few of the hot rod participants for a quick coffee.
“Any extra tourism is beneficial.”
Generally seeing an overall increase in visitors to the popular city attraction, Ms Coleman said they were flat-out at times.
“Looking back through records I can see the numbers have gone up over the years which is great news,” she said.
“There have been many international tourists mainly from the United Kingdom and Europe and at the moment a lot of Aussies are also on the road.
“We would love some more nice weather though so people stick around.”
