ORGANISERS of a petition calling on Eurobodalla Shire Council not to close and remain involved in the running of the Narooma Visitor Information Centre was presented to councillor Liz Innes on Monday complete with more than 2000 signatures.
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While concerned residents Lesley Heffernan and Breda Ryan-Faurschou said they were willing to consider all options regarding the future operation of the centre, they and the other signatories wanted the building’s core function to remain as a visitor information centre.
“It’s in a wonderful position and has so much to offer to the visitors,” Heffernan said.
Clr Innes said her view was that she wanted the community to take ownership of any plans to move ahead with the tourism services proposals and that she wanted the council to listen to the community.
“I would hope the lines of communication between council and the community are open,” she said.
In other tourism news, special guests from the NSW Government’s tourism and major events agency Destination NSW brought welcome news to council’s tourism advisory committee meeting last week.
Destination NSW confirmed that domestic visitor data from the September 2014 National Visitor Survey shows the number of overnight visitors and the total visitor spend for the Eurobodalla had all grown strongly.
Tourism is worth more than $2 billion annually to the South Coast economy and it directly employs around 3,300 people in the region, or 6.8 per cent of the region’s total employment.
Visitor services proposal discussion: mayor
A REPORT about the feedback to the visitor services proposal that was publicly exhibited during May will be presented to council in August.
Eurobodalla mayor Lindsay Brown said councillors and the Tourism Advisory Committee had been provided with an update on the community feedback.
“We received some good suggestions and information as well as concerns that will need to be addressed in the report,” he said.
“While the proposal presented a package aimed at improving the way visitors find information, unfortunately much of the feedback only addressed whether the Narooma Visitor Centre was going to close, which has never been suggested by council.
“The cost of running our two visitor centres is significantly higher than some other local government areas and we are committed to finding a solution that will address rising costs and provide a way to reallocate funds to attracting visitors to come here in the first place.
“This will be addressed particularly through increasing our digital marketing, while still meeting the needs of the smaller percentage of our visitors who use a visitor centre.
“Part of the proposal was to outsource or partner with a not-for-profit or commercial organisation to provide visitor services.
“The attraction for a commercial organisation is the foot traffic that comes through the door, and for a not-for-profit it may be the advantage of co-locating the delivery of services as well as revenue from retail and souvenir sales.
“We are not rushing through any major changes and it will be business as usual for a while.
“We have already made some operational changes in the centres to reduce costs including moving away from processing bookings and the labour intensive administration that comes with this.
“Tourism is a sophisticated industry and savvy businesses are already operating their own booking systems.
“The in-house booking system we had in place was operating at a loss and there is no longer a need for council to offer this service to businesses and it will cease on July 1.”
A new website, launching today July 1, will still offer a booking facility and council will continue to earn revenue from bookings made through booking.com.
“Visitors in the centres will still be able to browse through brochures and talk to staff for information and advice about accommodation and tours,” he said.
“They will also be able to book with businesses that offer online bookings via a new touch screen computer. Customers will also be offered free phone access to book directly if they prefer.
“Council is moving ahead with many other tourism projects including building the new website, assisting businesses with their tourism award submissions, and South Coast marketing campaigns that are now being seen in Sydney, Canberra and regional NSW.”
