South Coast Tourism wraps up first year on visitor growth high
One of New South Wales’ most visited tourism regions, the South Coast, has finished its first year on a high, recording a 22 per cent jump in visitors for the March quarter over the same period in 2007.
“This is an absolutely wonderful first birthday result, and gives us a great base to go on driving tourism growth into the region,†said South Coast Regional Tourism Organisation Chairman Rob Pollock.
Mr Pollock, a Eurobodalla Shire Councillor, said the South Coast was ideally positioned to capitalise on a growing trend for holidaymakers forced by fuel price rises to holiday closer to home.
“And being just a short drive from Sydney or Canberra and within six hours of Melbourne we are well placed to extract extra growth from these significant markets,†he said.
The South Coast Regional Tourism Organisation officially began operations on July 1 last year, when the six local government areas embracing the Illawarra and South Coast tourism regions brought their tourism marketing operations together.
Mr Pollock said a proactive product development program supported by a $1m marketing campaign launched early this year had achieved remarkable results, particularly out of the huge Sydney market.
“What we set out to do was to talk about the South Coast as a single entity rather than a collection of favourite beachfront or hinterland destinations, showing that a trip to the South Coast had much more to offer than a point-to-point visit to the holiday home or favourite beach,†Mr Pollock said.
“That and the fact that we’ve got some stunning attractions, like the award-winning Grand Pacific Drive and Montague Island Tours as well as the whitest sand in the world at Jervis Bay, and most recently the Illawarra Fly Tree Top Walk, is enabling us to convey that the South Coast is much more than a beach destination – as great as our beaches are.â€
Mr Pollock said data just released by NSW Tourism Minister Matt Brown’s office showed that the South Coast was on a growth surge, with first quarter visitor arrivals and visitor nights up 22 per to 1.1 million and 21.5 per cent to 4.9 million respectively over the same period last year.
Other National and International Visitor Survey figures for the March quarter showed that:
** the South Coast ranked 17th for expenditure by day visitors
** the South Coast ranked 12th for domestic overnight trips
** the South Coast ranked 3rd in NSW behind Sydney and the Mid North Coast for domestic overnight trips, and
** the South Coast ranked 10th in all regions in Australia for domestic overnight expenditure (advancing to 9th slot ahead of Adelaide when airfares are removed from calculations).
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