Thinking of a coastal holiday? Eurobodalla Shire wants you to stay a while. Photo: Kim Treasure.
Solving the unequal “peaks and troughs” of coastal visitation is a key goal of Eurobodalla Shire Council.
The council’s visitor economy manager Andrew Sargant said a recent tourism forum shone a light on where the region’s tourism market could be supported in the coming years.
The forum brought together more than 150 operators and industry leaders to discuss opportunities in coastal tourism.
Mr Sargant told Region that changing visitor behaviour (whether they come from interstate or are visiting family) was discussed.
Currently, he said, Eurobodalla Council statistics indicated the tourism sector generated $500 million for the local economy, with 1.5 million visitors a year.
“Eurobodalla doesn’t have the option to do a classic advertising campaign, if you like, in the Sydney market or the Melbourne market,” he said.
Instead, the council believes that having visitors stay longer or spend more during their time here (rather than the focus being put on an increase in the overall number of tourists) would best support the industry.
“It could be staying an extra night … if 20 per cent of visitors stayed one more night, that would deliver another $30 million into the visitor economy,” Mr Sargant said.
He also encouraged tourists to recommend Eurobodalla Shire to their friends and family.
“Word-of-mouth is essentially a free media channel.”
Mr Sargant said the council wanted to shift towards making information about the shire more accessible, such as by partnering with businesses to create QR codes people could use.
He cited changes in how people research and plan their holidays in the digital world as reasons why the council needed to engage with people differently.
“The foot traffic into visitor information centres is just declining every year — not just in Eurobodalla but around Australia,” he said.
“The feedback that we’re getting is that they don’t have time on their holidays to flip through a 64-page brochure. The point is to try and get people travelling further around the region, and make it easy for them to discover everything there is to see and do.”
Eurobodalla Council sees the world-class mountain bike trails near Mogo as a key tourism draw. Photo: Sea Otter Festival.
Ms Sargant said a long-term approach for Eurobodalla tourism would also involve collaboration with local businesses and service providers.
This would include a shift beyond the beaches.
“In the past, we’ve tended to focus on the region’s natural assets … but there are a lot of manmade assets which are also key motivators for people to visit and to have a great experience,” Mr Sargant said.
“[That means] elevating and integrating industry into our destination story better.”
The council has flagged its plan to increase support for infrastructure and businesses related to mountain biking trails and oyster leases.
Mr Sargant said the region’s mountain biking trails, at Narooma and Mogo, were one of its fastest-growing markets.
“Quite often, they’ll come down with their family, and their family isn’t as enthusiastic as the enthusiast, so they’re looking for other things to do … Eurobodalla has a lot to offer in that area,” he said.
Mr Sargant said growing the market of people visiting friends and family living on the coast was also a priority, adding that about 25 per cent of tourists fell into this category.
It was all part of the plan to support tourism on the South Coast — but the hope was to make the numbers more consistent.
“We get the obvious influx of visitors over the summer period, and a reasonably significant drop-off over winter,” Mr Sargant said.
“Evening out those peaks and troughs would be a priority.”
