The head of Tasmania’s peak tourism body has warned that the growth in visitor numbers needs to ‘occur sensibly’ if the state doesn’t want to become victim of its own success … and end up locking people out of their favourite camping spots.
Luke Martin from the Tourist Industry Council Tasmania told the Mercury newspaper that the focus going forward should be on ‘value over volume’.
“When people hear value over volume, they immediately think rich tourists but it’s also people in caravans who spend two or three months in the state spending money over winter,” he said. “We can keep growing over summer but that will start to impede upon Tasmanians’ capacity to enjoy the place and none of us in the industry wants that to happen.”
Travelling in Tassie at this time of the year is much less crowded ... and much cooler! PIC: Christine Booth / Pexels
Mr Martin, who will leaves his tourism job soon after 12 years in charge, said May and June were much busier than six or seven years ago and a key aim should be to attract more tourists from July to November.
“Tasmanians, who for four generations have camped every summer in that same campsite at Friendly Beaches, or Spring Beach or White Beach will be the first to legitimately complain if their capacity to enjoy the lifestyle of Tasmania is impacted because there’s just too many tourists,” he told the Mercury. “We need to create the means for people to experience this place in times of the year other than summer which is a busy, exciting time to be in Tassie.”
A new tourism plan is scheduled to be released this year that will guide growth and investment.
Premier and Tourism Minister Jeremy Rockliff said the Key Directions Paper for Tasmania’s 2030 Visitor Economy released recently had forecast a similar rate of growth to that over the past decade.
“This is great for the future prosperity of our state – providing even more jobs for Tasmanians and growing our economy,” he told the Mercury. “However, unmanaged growth can have an impact and that’s why the Key Directions Paper is both a plan for growth and a plan to manage growth.”
He said Tasmania’s tourism industry supported thousands of jobs across the state, and the Government was taking action to continue this momentum and set out its longer term vision and direction.
The Mercury reports that the Directions Paper is open for community consultation, and Mr Rockliff urged all Tasmanians to have their say.
The final 2030 Visitor Economy Strategy is expected to be released this year.
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Therein lies the problem that has had a detrimental effect on many waterfront places on the big island as well. Many locals get priced out of the beautiful getaway locations that they originally moved to get away from the hustle of Cities.
I imagine Luke Martin has not ever been camping in a caravan in winter in Tasmania. Running a diesel heater on full will not encourage campers to leave their caravan to try to enjoy the attractions of Tasmania over winter. They are mostly closed anyhow.
This quite ineffective Tourist spokesman has now taken up a new post!
Any destination that requires me to book 6 months or more just to get there is automatically off my list of desirable places to visit. After several summers enjoying the sights of Tasmania, I’ve decided that Victoria more than meets my needs and as for winter, well, Victoria covers that too.