Tourism Activation Plan
LONGREACH-WINTON SUB-REGION, QLD
This sub-region in Queensland’s Central Outback has fewer than 5,000 residents but hosts more than 110,000 visitors annually. The region has $100 million in tourism assets including the Australian Age of Dinosaurs, Australian Stockman’s Hall of Fame, Qantas Founders Museum and the Waltzing Matilda Centre, as well as award-winning tour products and experiences such as Outback Pioneers and Outback Aussie Tours.
Project Purpose
Longreach Regional Council and Winton Shire Council wanted to ensure their existing tourism infrastructure and other assets would be optimised, and new market growth and investment opportunities embraced to more evenly distribute visitation throughout the year. In other words, the intention of developing the Tourism Activation Plan was to ensure the two regions were ready for the growth being driven by their four major tourism attractions.
Establishing and maintaining a year-round visitor economy is fundamental for Longreach and Winton to attract future investment and grow business and community vibrancy. The majority of visitation to the subregion is concentrated in five months to avoid the hot summer months of the Outback. A focus of the development plan was to identify opportunities and target markets for growing visitation outside of the peak season to support the sustainability of tourism operators to have year-round employment.
“As a first for Outback Queensland, Longreach and Winton Councils collaborated to create an outcomes-based tourism strategy focused directly on the needs of their small rural communities.
Tilma Group used their extensive industry and stakeholder consultation experience to connect with and bring together the relevant stakeholders of the two councils to specifically focus on realistic results-driven projects whilst remaining pragmatic, friendly and engaging.
Throughout the project Tilma Group always ensured that the key stakeholders were engaged and kept fully informed at each identified reporting milestone.
Tilma Group have extensive regional and remote tourism experience and this was invaluable to creating a workable strategy with defined implementable projects that will benefit the tourism in Western Queensland in the years to come. ”
Project Overview
Tilma Group consulted with a project reference group of ten diverse stakeholders from within and outside of the subregion. A comprehensive list of further stakeholders was developed in collaboration with the reference group. A gaps and opportunities paper based on a tourism and events audit of the region was shared with stakeholders to encourage commentary. One-one meetings (in person and by phone) with operators and other stakeholders were held to discuss the audit’s findings and the opportunities presented in the paper. A stakeholder workshop was held in Longreach which twenty stakeholders attended to discuss findings and aspirations, a potential vision for the sub region, and the strategies required to fully activate the existing infrastructure.
The resulting tourism activation plan outlines strategic priorities and required catalyst and enabler projects to deliver results immediately and in the medium to long term, with a framework and pragmatic approach to activating projects based on priority and consumer demand.
Catalyst projects were identified as those critical to the sub-region to reduce seasonality, attract high spend visitors and grow the visitor economy. Further enabler projects were recommended to deliver specific outcomes needed to ensure the success of the catalyst projects.
Working across local Government borders presented some concern initially, however this innovative approach proved to be extremely successful. The challenge was in changing staff throughout the life of the project, with CEO’s being replaced at both Councils and the resignation of the project leader at the end of the project.
(This was a joint project between Tilma Group, JJ Strategic Consulting and Alphacrane Intercultural Specialists.)
Outcomes
This collaborative cross border plan has provided the Councils and industry with a clear roadmap on the priority projects to focus on. The plan was a catalyst for bringing industry together and supporting opportunities to undertake cooperative work and projects.
By late 2020 Winton's Mayor Baskett declared the first piece of the Activation Plan had well and truly delivered for both regions: “I think this has been a success because we’ve noticed over the last few months since the state’s been re-opened [post the COVID lockdown], that almost every night these two towns are full,” he said.
“This is the first time we’ve ever bought metro media. By pooling our resources, we’ve been able to extend the scope of our collaborative marketing campaign and reach new markets at an important time,” said Longreach's Mayor Rayner. “We’re seeing clear evidence that it’s working too: Longreach is the only airport in Queensland that has returned to pre-COVID passenger numbers – and not only that, we’ve grown them.”
Referee
Russell Lowry
(Former) Economic Development and Tourism Manager
Longreach Regional Council
PO Box 144
Ilfracombe QLD 4727
0428 897 034
russell@organisationalanalytics.com.au