It’s no secret that plenty of small rural towns have become increasingly reliant on the money brought in by grey nomads and other travellers … and that’s why many are so desperate to retain basic amenities to entice tourists.
While on the face of it, the closure of one single café shouldn’t be a big deal … to large numbers of residents of one tiny WA town, it’s a huge deal!
The ABC reports that Guilderton, located at the mouth of the Moore River 100 kilometres north of Perth, is home to 150 full-time residents … but welcomes hundreds of thousands of visitors each year.
A couple of weeks ago, the town’s only standalone café, the Guilderton Café, closed its doors … sparking a huge outpouring of local angst.
How important are coffee tourists to rural towns? PIC: Nastya Sensei / Pexels
The vice-president of the Guilderton Community Association, Linda Johnson, told the ABC that the closure would have a major impact on tourism.
“It’s essential that we have some kind of services for tourists,” she said. “We get thousands of people down here in the summer and on the weekends … a café is essential down at the foreshore.”
The café’s lessee, Belgravia Leisure – which also runs the town’s caravan park – blamed the closure on increased operating costs.
It said it also faced difficulty attracting staff, and had spent $390,000 on renovating the site before plans to complete a full renovation became unviable due to escalating building costs.
Belgravia Leisure – which was awarded the café lease two years ago – said it had received several expressions of interest from businesses looking to take over the café, and expected the current closure to be short-term.
Nonetheless, the ABC reports that more than 60 people gathered on the foreshore recently to protest over their shire’s management of local infrastructure and tourism.
Protest organiser Katie Enright, whose mother Kerry used to run the cafe, said residents felt largely left behind by the council.
“There’s aged infrastructure here in Guilderton and nothing’s been done,” she told the ABC. “There’s no tourism … we previously had a lot of tourists but they’ve totally died off … there is nothing being implemented here in Guilderton for a positive change to bring tourists back.”
Gingin Shire President Wayne Fewster said council was disappointed by the café’s closure, but remained hopeful of a quick re-opening.
“We’re as disappointed as anyone that it’s not open but we are working with Belgravia as quickly as possible to get it resolved,” he told the ABC.
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NO.
We stopped going to Guilderton when the local authority started charging for parking. Made it an expensive day on top of food, a possible boat trip, long free walk on the beach and fuel from Perth and return. Now the Cafe is closed, there goes my day off from food preparation as t
I hear a lot of place’s close, because of high rent, and unable to get staff,