Charlotte Varcoe
THE Limestone Coast will be featured in a new campaign promoting the region and its marketing efforts.
Minister for Tourism Zoe Bettison said the state government-funded campaign would feature the area in “key advertising campaigns” as well as digital, social media, public relations and cooperative campaigns.
Following her recent visit to the Limestone Coast, Ms Bettison said there were opportunities for regions to benefit from major state-wide events such as the AFL Gather Round.
“The Mount Gambier council had a supportive campaign from the South Australian Tourism Commission, Before the Bounce,” Ms Bettison said.
“Taking on the opportunity of that travelling component, and50 per cent of people who came to the Gather Round did drive to it, they had lots of different things – community activations, visits by former players and I think different games – that happened.
“What I heard from my regional trip is that the whole of the Limestone Coast would like to be included in those Before the Bounce programs, and not just Before the Bound, but after the event as well.”
She said what she wanted people to do was look at visiting the regions with the Limestone Coast being a “key part” of that.
“All regions can be considered when we have such a high proportion of people with their eyes on South Australia – and not just their eyes, but are actually travelling here as well,” Ms Bettison said.
She said moving forward, she would like to have the Naracoorte Caves as a key area to display all positive things happening in the area.
“Particularly in the arts community and, of course, the wine that the Coonawarra is very famous for in the Limestone Coast,” Ms Bettison said.
“Within that area we have the potential, and a master plan is due…I will continue to work with the relevant minister to see that happen.”
At its recent meeting the Limestone Coast Local Government tabled its Limestone Coast Destination Tourism and Marketing Plan 2025.
Within the plan, it detailed the Limestone coast being one of the “hardest hit regions” in the state following the Covid-19 pandemic.
The report stated the impact of the second Covid-19 wave in Victoria and its eight-week lockdown hit the Limestone Coast region “particularly hard” on two accounts.
THis included the traditional attraction of interstate visitors and intrastate visitors avoiding the Limestone Coast due to its close proximity to the Victorian border.
THe plan detailed a number of key challenges including under-activated nature based experiences, lack of resourcing, industry engagement, competition and the disruption of Covid-19.
It also detailed key opportunities such as consumer direct marketing, events, experience development, cross border marketing and collaborative visitor servicing.
According to the plan, the Limestone Coast has the potential to capitalise on the “new traveller trends” and behaviours by continuing to develop and leverage the natural assets.
Ambitions were highlighted such as measuring the value of the visitor economy and visitor yield targets while strategic directions included marketing, visitor servicing, events, experience development, infrastructure and access, governance and collaboration, industry capability and promoting the value of tourism.
