If you take a look at today’s Busselton Dunsborough Times and Augusta Margaret River Times, you’ll find a statement from Paul Cross of Naturaliste Charters giving his perspective on what the tourism industry means for his business. The advertisement is the latest activity forming part of the MRBTA’s ‘Value of Tourism’ campaign, which aims to raise local awareness of the regional brand and to educate the community on the value that tourism brings to this region. The MRBTA will be working with its members and tourism industry leaders on a number of initiatives over the next 12 months and beyond, and we will keep you updated with the activity.
About the MRBTA Value of Tourism campaign
Background:
The Margaret River Busselton Tourism Association (MRBTA) currently has around 700 member businesses across the Margaret River Region. These are primarily businesses which recognise visitors to the region as a key target market, and include accommodation, attractions/activities/tours, artisans/galleries, wineries, breweries/distilleries and restaurants/cafes.
The MRBTA enjoys a high member retention rate, with over 80 per cent of members renewing their membership of the Association each year. While the MRBTA has some service/retail members, it is not representative of the sector. These businesses typically don’t consider themselves involved in, or beneficiaries of, tourism. There is a need to educate the broader business community on the value of tourism to their business, and the role of MRBTA in driving economic, social and environmental returns for the region. They in turn, with key stakeholder influencers, can help influence the broader community’s sentiment toward tourism.
Objectives:
- To establish the value of tourism, in economic, social and environmental terms, with key stakeholders, the business community and local communities
- To develop continued support for the YMRR’ s activities and brand implementation.
- To demonstrate the way in which individual towns are represented as part of the brand implementation.
- To target key stakeholders who can be advocates for the value of tourism to YMRR and MRBTA.
- To demonstrate and improve tourism outcomes through better collaboration
Key messages:
The overarching key message for the campaign is that tourism brings significant social, economic and environmental benefits to our community, making it a better place for everyone to live and work. This will be achieved through the following sub-messages:
- YMRR is Western Australia’s most visited regional destination. It attracts more than 1.1 million overnight visitors, who stay in the region for more than 4.3 million nights and have a direct spend of more than $520 million.
- Taking into account tourism’s multiplier effect, which is higher than many other industries including mining and retail, tourism contributes more than $1 billion into our local economy.
- The tourism industry employs more than 7,000 people in the South West, with the industry set to grow as a major employer over the next five years (Australian Tourism Labour Force).
- Tourism is identified as one of the five super growth industries set to drive the post-mining boom Australian economy (Deloitte, Building the Lucky Country).
- Attracting visitors in a highly competitive marketplace requires collaboration and partnerships.
The YMRR brand platform is based on market research and designed to leverage the marketing efforts of ASW, TWA, Tourism Australia (TA) and the work of the wine industry in establishing the Margaret River Region brand.
If you would like to know more about the campaign, please contact Jenny Lee via [email protected].
Get involved online
We will be sharing Paul’s statement via advertisements on Facebook and Instagram over the next week and we encourage our members to look out for the posts and to get involved in any conversations that take place.