Part 1 - Shire of Ashburton

Shire of Ashburton Tourism Strategy
January 2011
The Council is also involved in the planning, provision and management of
community activities, services and infrastructure that are shared by residents and
visitors. These include parks and reserves, roads, water management, pedestrian
and streetscape improvements, and public amenities such as toilets, bikeways and
parking areas. Council also owns and leases a number of tourist commercial
accommodation facilities and contributes to tourism related initiatives on a
project style basis. Council’s central role in tourism within the Shire also includes
acting as the consenting authority for most development applications and is
responsible for decisions related to land use planning.
Local tourism industry and
business sector
Department of Environment &
Conservation (DEC)
The local tourism and business sectors are represented by business and
community organisations including the newly formed Tom Price Business
Association, the Onslow Tourist Committee, a small number of dedicated local
tourism and general business operators. According to Tourism Research Australia
– Ashburton Shire research summary, as at June 2007 there were some 96 tourism
businesses operating within the Shire.
The WA State Government agency responsible for managing national parks,
marine parks and various conservations areas and therefore a large number of the
region’s nature based tourist attractions such as Karijini and Millstream Chichester
National Parks. The DEC Pilbara region was a strong driver of the Warlu Way
initiative – a self drive touring itinerary stretching from Exmouth to Broome. The
DEC also operates the Karijini Visitors Centre located within the Karijini National
Park and staffed by DEC employees.
The remainder of this introduction section defines relevant general tourism issues and outlines some core tourism
destination development principles that will be useful for those readers not familiar with the tourism industry and
will set the scene for recommendations and analysis later in this report.
1.3 The Australian Tourism Industry
Tourism is a global industry that is highly competitive and over the longer term outlook has enjoyed strong
growth. There were nearly 880 million international tourist arrivals throughout the world in 2009 (source: World
Tourism Organisation). The World Tourism Organisation (WTO) forecasts that the number of international arrivals
worldwide will continue to grow at around 4‐5 per cent per annum. However, Australia is, and at least over the
medium term, will remain a small global player due largely to its relative geographical remoteness from the main
market sources of Europe, Northern Asia and the Americas. Australia currently attracts less than one per cent of
this international tourism market with around five million international tourists per year. Australia is, for most of
the world, a long‐haul destination almost totally reliant on air services.
Reflecting these “access” challenges Australia will never rival (in terms of volume) mass tourist destinations such
as France (estimated to have attracted some 75 million international tourists in 2009 source: WTO) however
government agencies such as Tourism Australia and Tourism WA instead attempt to market and attract special
interest and niche visitor markets by focusing upon how Australia is different to other competing global
destinations. Tourism Australia’s current global marketing campaign is “There’s Nothing Like Australia” and for
Tourism WA the “Experience Extraordinary” message is the focus of its current branding for Western Australia.
How effective these agencies are in delivering these “unique selling point” messages will ultimately determine
how successful these destinations attract the international visitor.
4