Western Australia’s caravan parks will be given a major facelift in a bid to keep grey nomads coming to the state.
The Barnett Government says the sector has been neglected too long and is costing the state millions of dollars in lost tourism revenue. It also wants park operators to be given more training in an effort to overhaul the industry.
Despite its natural beauty and size, the state apparently attracts only 10% of the country’s 9.4 million caravan and camping tourists – a sector worth $7.9 billion nationally in 2011-12.
“There is a whole bunch of people all around Australia who tour around, and they all talk to each other, and I have to say a lot of their comments about WA are fairly negative,” Tourism Minister, Kim Hames, told Sydney’s Daily Telegraph. “A lot of them avoid WA. They’ll get around the top and instead of coming all the way through WA will go back through the middle and dodge WA. That’s a pretty common theme that we want to change.”
Dr Hames said caravanners had complained about a lack of dump sites, overflow space for peak periods, places to stop between destinations and a lack of parks in some areas.
“There is a huge cohort of retirees Australia-wide, who cruise around Australia in their caravans, that we don’t cater for very well,” he said. “I don’t understand why it hasn’t been a key part of the strategy because intra-state tourism is just as valuable as interstate and international.”
He said the first step was to offer park operators and staff professional training to improve the standards of service.
“We do need to try to get the standards of our current operators up to a higher standard and so we’re providing a training program for that while we wait to hopefully get the money for the rest of the strategy,” he said.
Dr Hames said the state needed to offer a range of facilities from budget sites for self-contained caravanners to tourist parks with all the amenities for families.
Tourism WA says priority locations include travel hot spots such as Exmouth, Broome and Margaret River.
Do you think van parks are worse in WA than in other states and territories? Do you ‘dodge’ WA when you’re planning your Big Lap itinerary? Comment below.
Nice to see logic coming into play.
So the figures for 2011/2012 show $7.9 BILLION spent by the caravanning/camping/motorhoming fraternity.
Quite a big pie and if you believe the research by the Industry will get bigger over the next few years.
The old adage. ‘Give them what they want and they will come.’ Looks like the WA Govt are putting up the dollars to do just that.
The CP’s of the sixties and Seventies just don’t cut it any more and the whole industry needs to address that.
There will always be a place for the traditional Parks but modern Vans and motor homes need a different type of CP.
Address those needs and they will come.
Three things to remember Mr Barnett and co.
1. Basic CP’s – at basic prices, most of us do not need the jumping castle stuff!
2. Most of us get away on the road because we like space around us, don’t care what the CP is like if I am shoe horned into a space and made to feel like a sardine I am not going to stay there!
3. The term Grey Nomad is being used in a lot of business meetings to indicate lots of dollars, whilst this may be true for some a lot of grey nomads are on the road because they cannot afford to live anywhere else, we are not all ‘rolling in it’!
Logic?!
‘Dr Hames said caravanners had complained about a lack of dump sites, overflow space for peak periods, places to stop between destinations and a lack of parks in some areas…..
He said the first step was to offer park operators and staff professional training to improve the standards of service.’
Sorry…..I must bemissing it: where’s the logic in that!?!?
We’re grey nomad Queenslanders traveling through WA for the first and last time.
The sight of another sign stating ‘No Camping in this Shire’ keeps us on the move.
For us the bottom tier of van park is appealing, no people, plenty of space, crappy facilities and reasonable fees ($20 pn), we dont require much as we’re self contained!
To be told there’s no unpowered caravan sites (they’re only for tents), that the nearest , dump site 50klm’s away is a turn off for us, operators need to get up to speed with the latest in caravan technology. Solar panels etc..
WA has 1000’s klms of coastline all locked up to visitors, whats their problem providing basic camp grounds that could satisfy the potential demand?
We no longer care, they can wallow in their mining wealth despite the rest of the Australian population!
We only need basics in caravan parks…$20 pn..no fancy stuff..found WA not really interested in keeping ‘grey nomads’ around…can’t park there or mines have used caravan parks for workers so bugger off…and most are cabin parks in the south especially near populated areas….
I have been staying in the Northern Suburbs of Perth and have found that a lot of the parks have mainly permanent sites and other CP are closing down to become retirement villages and are not fixing things that break, and they charge like wounded bulls.
Come on WA get your act together.
We loved WA and would go back if it wasn’t so far from NSW, how about working with other states to improve the road across the middle of Oz. This would allow those who have been around before to go back with less k’s to travel. We found CP’s okay but extremely busy in the winter months, Broome being the hardest to find a site. Parks need overflow areas of a certain standard to be available in the winter months. Road stops were poor and need upgrading but we have to be fair and say that there is such a distance between centres that regular maintenance is probably very expensive. Upgrades would have to be built so that less maintenance is required. Unfortunately some travellers are uncaring about these road stops and give the majority of decent vanners a bad name.
We are fully self sufficient big rig and we are on our way from Albury NSW to WA, waiting out the Summer heat in Adelaide,….but must admit have had such bad feedback from fellow nomads on our way that we are becoming quite apprehensive about going, but will make up our own mind and intend to head over shortly. So we hope we don’t regret it.
In reply to Frank. I don’t know who the people are telling you to think twice about going to WA. It is basically a great place but of course the vastness of the State means that there isn’t a CP or rest area every 2 or 3 hundred kilometres. We had a great time in WA 2 years ago and would go again (and may) if age and time permits. Bev
Regarding Trevor locks comment; “There will always be a place for the traditional Parks but modern Vans and motor homes need a different type of CP’.. I really dont get this…caravan parks have always had the three basics, power, water and amenities…how is a ‘modern van or motorhome’ different….as stated above, Grey Nomads, like us anyway, generally seek value for money, if a CP goes all out with family orientated touristy attractions it will almost certainly put the price above what our ‘self funding’ budget will allow.
I would have to agree with most of the comments made about travel in W.A.. We just recently returned from a trip around aussie and our experiences in the north of W.A was less than impressive. We found most CP owners very rude and were not Dog friendly until after the rush finished in Sept. The cost of CP in the north were ridiculus especially Broome and along the coast. I also found that if you didnt have a pole with a flag on it they didnt want to know you. all in all we were very dissapointed in the way the north area of WA tourism is handled. I would suggest that they be given training in Manners and courtesy. I dont think we will be traveling through the nth of WA again. But would probably go back to the southern area again as the people up top of WA could take lessons from them.
We went to WA in 1985 & again in 1998. The first time we went up as far as Canarvan, just did the South on second trip. Fell in love with the state, and contemplated moving there. Met quite a few people who did.At the time,travel by road to WA was fairly new, so I suppose our expectations weren”t very high. I agree with all the comments I have read, we do not need fancy caravan parks, just basic clean amenities & reasonable prices, People skills are of the utmost importance if you want to encourage people to visit, we would not want to be treated as we were in Vic. once,about thirty years ago when travelling with friends, we had, between us bought $100 worth of petrol & were refused permission to use the ammenities. We will all remember the bad experiences we have.
We spent 3months in WA from July – Sept 2012 which was the low season in Southern WA Total length of rig with trailer 17m and had no trouble finding parks to accomadate us as they were happy to have travellers at that time up there.of the year. The managers of all the parks we stayed at went out of their way to help us get our rig in. However I suspect it would be a different story in peak season. Had a really memorable time but won’t attempt to visit northern WA until we downsize as we have heard places for big rigs are severely limited