Charlotte Varcoe
CITY of Mount Gambier must work with “what is sustainable” and “what is important” according to Minister for Tourism Zoe Bettison.
Ms Bettison toured the Limestone Coast last week, visiting iconic locations such as the Naracoorte Caves, Kingston, Robe and Penola before finishing her tour in Mount Gambier/Berrin.
Following the recent announcement of the Umpherston Kiosk and Engelbrecht Caves operators retiring and city council taking over operations, Ms Bettison said visitor centres remained important for tourists.
“We know if someone comes and visits a centre they spend more money in the region because they have a conversation with people about what there is to do,” Ms Bettison said.
“We do tend to fall back on all the information available on phones and people can look it up there but they also do not know what they do not know.”
She said council needed to keep working with what was sustainable and important with visitor centres remaining customer-led and encouraging visitors to embrace the region and stay more nights.
“What comes next is what does that take, what activities are there to do because not everyone is into diving and the Blue Lake is a big attraction but we need to look at what gaps are in the tourism industry across the Limestone Coast,” Ms Bettison said.
“We need more activity attractions and I would love to see more sales based around essentially a tour because there are already the natural assets but we need to find more activities around that.”
She said there were already tourist attractions for high end tastings but she believed more could be done for the region by tapping into other industries such as the crayfishing experience.
Ms Bettison also acknowledged the increased cost of hosting events and said she hoped further funding would be available for events in regional areas.
“We have to do that a little bit more partly because of the increase in costs and we would like to support more and different events,” Ms Bettison said.
“We are looking at supporting regions in tourism and there is extra money in the budget for that.”
She said operations needed to be strong with the state government wanting to have “much more key proposition” for the state and regions “to be united in one voice”.
“I think the region has a lot to offer and I think part of that is looking at where that additional money – which is in the state budget now – and how it can be divided up,” Ms Bettison said.
“We are going through that process and Mount Gambier and the Limestone Coast will be a part of that.”
Ms Bettison also congratulated councils across the Limestone Coast for adapting and tapping into tourism opportunities from increased traffic to Adelaide for major events such as Gather Round.
“When we are making events for Adelaide and there is an increase in traffic the City of Mount Gambier has taken that opportunity to encourage people to stay longer and that has really attracted people’s attention,” she said.
“The key thing is this is a competitive landscape as it has everything, the Limestone Coast has history here, when you drive around there is beautiful architecture and it is a bit of a must do for people.”
