EUROBODALLA Shire Council has approved a 42-day public consultation period over a proposal to implement a “new model” for delivering visitor services in Eurobodalla.
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At yesterday’s (Tuesday’s) council meeting, Eurobodalla mayor and chairman of the Tourism Advisory Committee, Lindsay Brown, used his casting vote to block a move to extend the consultation period to 90 days.
The proposal is seen as threat to the future of the Narooma Visitor Information Centre, and a gallery packed with Narooma business people was audibly disappointed at the mayor’s action.
A special meeting of the Narooma Chamber of Commerce has now been planned to consider the proposal, at Club Narooma on April 7.
Mayor Brown said before the meeting that the proposal had been developed over some months with input from the committee, research from staff and some independent expertise as well. It was one of the outcomes of council’s organisational review program.
It is proposed the needs of visitors would be met by five visitor information services including a seven day a week visitor information contact call centre, a pop-up mobile visitor information service, visitor information hubs, Level 2 or 3 accredited visitor information centres and a volunteer tourism ambassador program.
The proposal does not include council-run visitor centres in Batemans Bay and Narooma, but Mayor Brown said it opened the way for commercial or not-for-profit groups to consider how they could support additional visitor information services through operating Level 2 or 3 visitor centres as stand alone or with other businesses, and information hubs.
“This is not about closing the visitor centres or reducing services to visitors, it’s about council moving from being a provider of ‘bricks and mortar’ visitor centres, to a provider of quality visitor information in places where visitors are seeking it,” Clr Brown said.
Clr Brown went on to say that the proposal includes a mobile service that will be able to set up as an information centre at major events and high traffic areas.
“This is about going out to where the visitors are, rather than waiting for them to come to us,” he said.
“It’s pretty clear from the research that people are increasingly looking for information on the web, by phone and through social media and there are less and less people walking through the doors of our visitor centres.
“It’s estimated that less than 5 per cent of visitors coming to Eurobodalla actually walk into our centres to seek help.
“The proposed model with its five visitor information services would cost around $365,000 to deliver in its first year, while operating the two visitor centres costs around $645,000 a year, with these costs rising annually.”
As the proposed model would cost less to deliver, it is also an opportunity for funds to be reallocated to web and digital marketing and priorities in the Destination Management Plan without increasing overall expenditure on tourism.
The independent report from My Travel Research recommended that council needs to embrace the digital economy in tourism and that a greater proportion of the overall investment into tourism should be reallocated to the web.
“The Tourism Advisory Committee’s input to date has been rigorous and very valuable and I thank the members for volunteering their time to advise Council on matters such as this,” Clr Brown said.
“Tourism is the key economic driver in Eurobodalla and it is important to find a way to meet the needs of visitors, and to be able to fund new technologies and digital marketing activities in the competitive tourism market.”
The reports includes five recommendations from the Tourism Advisory Committee, including that Council continues to allocate the same level of annual funding for tourism if the proposal is adopted.
The report attached to the council’s meeting agenda for Tuesday, March 24, report GMR15/005 Tourism Visitor Services Proposal and can be viewed on Council’s website: www.esc.nsw.gov.au/inside-council/council/meetings/2015/march/ordinary-council-meeting-24-march-2015/Agenda-24-March-2015.pdf
A different way of doing things
While the Eurobodalla shire grapples with its visitor information centres, the Bermagui Area Chamber of Commerce and Tourism at its Tuesday breakfast meeting received an interesting update on that town’s visitor centre.
The Bermagui Visitor Information Centre is now operated and funded by the Bermagui chamber with a paid manager and several volunteers.
Bega Valley Shire council and Sapphire Tourism do supplement the operation including contributing toward the paid part-time manager.
Gretel Bodiam, Bermagui chamber executive committee member and centre liaison, said while visitation numbers were down 7 per cent last year, the centre was performing a vital role for visitors.
While visitors were more likely to do their research and book accommodation online before arriving, they were stopping in at the centre to find out more information once they arrived.
The centre was able to affirm what they had researched online and point them to other attractions, providing maps and other resources.
Staffing the Bermagui centre with volunteers was however an ongoing challenge and the roster was now down to four core people, requiring the paid manager to put in more hours.
The chamber and centre was most grateful for the volunteers and always looking for new people to do what was a rewarding and interesting community job.