Let's get Involved

Strength in tourism usually comes from a combination of resourcing, leadership and industry participation.

Many tourism organizations struggle to attract membership and involvement from their business community. Sometimes this is because of a failure in communication, operator confusion regarding who to join, but more often it is because of a lack of credible leadership and a perceived lack of relevance.

From time to time, tourism organisations may use membership drives to appeal to the altruism of operators to help build local industry strength. However, most tourism operators are sceptical, individualistic business people, who ‘vote with their feet’. If the offering from their local, regional or industry sector association is not appealing, does not seem relevant to their needs, or is not cost-effective, they will find other ways to channel their interests and energies.

Financial and other incentives may help to build membership, such as group buying schemes for insurance, energy, business consumables etc, but they are only the icing on the cake. It is no coincidence that most of Victoria’s largest tourism membership bodies have achieved their status through constantly proving themselves to be relevant and useful to their business community.

Especially at regional and local levels, tourism is an ill-defined collection of people and businesses. Frequently operators do not even view themselves as being part of an ‘industry’ and they often see other local businesses as competitors. It requires a strategic approach to knit them together and it’s an even harder task to retain them as a cohesive body. Often, changes of direction in regional tourism policy, a drop in resourcing, or changes in leadership can affect the credibility of the organization in the eyes of the tourism operator.

However, there are many stories around Victoria that illustrate success in building and retaining industry involvement. Read a few of those projects here and if your region has done something of merit, please let us know, so that we can add it to the list (email: )

Case studies
Bendigo Life’s a Dish (157 kb)
Mornington Peninsula Swapcard Program (102 kb)
Gippsland Tourism Industry Leadership Program (158 kb)
Ballarat Visitor Services (282 kb)
Mildura Tourism Week (261 kb)
Geelong Otway Tourism membership scheme (135 kb)