Strategy

Vital, cohesive communities with quality services and infrastructure, a strong sense of place, community spirit and enviable quality of life, also make attractive tourism destinations.

One of the things that makes tourism work is when you create bonds among communities that take visitors from one place to the next. You have to create a visitor experience.”  
 …… Nicki Stratton, Executive Director of Springfield Convention & Visitors Bureau

A destination can be a city or township such as Ballarat or Beechworth, or a geographic region such as the Great Ocean Road or the Yarra Valley, or even a retail precinct such as Chapel Street in South Yarra.

The experiences that consumers seek often involve several destinations.

Growing Destinations

Visitors’ overall experiences comprise a complex range of elements, including expectations, transport, information, accommodation, dining, shopping, a welcoming host community, security and other services. The key to destination planning and management is understanding what today’s consumer is seeking and the aspirations they wish to fulfil. Finding the right market segment/s that will best respond to a destination’s ‘offer’ and delivering corresponding products and experiences is fundamental to success.

Previously, destinations tended to focus on promotion to maximise visitation. Councils and tourism organisations now appreciate the need to better manage the whole visitor ‘experience’. Success can translate into repeat visits, longer stays, increased spending and positive word of mouth. Conversely, destinations that have undergone visual degradation and loss of sense of identity through inappropriate planning, development and management are increasingly rejected by consumers.

While visitor services such as Visitor Information Centres, toilets and recreation areas are important, successful tourism areas now consider consumer research, industry structures, leadership, crisis management and environmental protection, in an effort to build a sustainable industry. Above all, development of a sustainable destination must also focus on the needs and aspirations of the local community.

What are the challenges?

1. Despite considerable growth in the industry during the past 20 years, there is still relatively low awareness in regional areas of the economic, social and cultural benefits to be derived from a healthy local tourism sector.
2. While Victoria can boast several successful regional and local tourism organisations, there is a wide variance in the skill level and maturity of the state’s tourism bodies.
3. Tourism and hospitality industry investment has grown significantly in Melbourne during the past decade, but there is still difficulty in attracting tourism investment into regional Victoria.
4. To ensure sustainability, regions and destinations need to be better prepared to respond to crises, so as to lessen the impact on their operators and local economy.
5. There is a tendancy for destinations to not differentiate themselves.
6. There is great variability in the quality of tourism product and service delivery across the state.

Key Strategies

1. Develop and implement a Regional Tourism Strategy to address statewide inconsistencies in product and industry structures.
2. Further promote the significance of tourism to regional communities and stakeholders by Industry and government.
3. Further develop the capacity of regional tourism organizations to more strategically manage and plan for the development of the local industry, including leadership programs, destination planning, mentoring, product and market differentiation, crisis planning and response.
4. Investigate opportunities to create ‘investor-friendly’ regional planning environments, while also encouraging regions to objectively and realistically analyse their tourism products and experiences to better match customer need.
5. Build understanding among regions of the importance of visitor navigation (eg: signage, maps etc) and increase awareness of new consumer behavioural patterns.
6. Demonstrate the benefits of adopting a sustainable approach to destination development, marketing and leadership.
7. Encourage destinations and their businesses to recognise existing and potential touring patterns, in order to build greater intra and inter regional collaboration and resource sharing

Desired outcomes

1. Greater private sector quality investment in regional tourism infrastructure.
2. Strengthened regional tourism structures - based on best practice models – that reflect the needs of the private sector, are resilient to short term changes in local governance, and that operate in accordance with the desires of local communities .
3. A significantly heightened awareness among local government, the retail sector and the public of the economic, social and cultural contribution that can be made by an effective tourism industry.
4. Consistently high visitor satisfaction levels in the key tourism destinations of Victoria.
5. Economic improvement achieved through the adoption of environmentally sustainable principles.
6. Key destinations within the state to be clearly differentiated, based on identified product strengths, marketing and strategic product-market matching.