Part 1 - Shire of Ashburton

Shire of Ashburton Tourism Strategy
January 2011
- Activities in and surrounding Tom Price include a highly popular Pilbara Iron Mine tours, Kings Lake
recreational area, Mt Nameless 4WD and walk trail, some limited retail operations at the town centre.
- Activities in and surrounding the Onslow townsite include interesting history, boardwalk and heritage trail
walks, birdlife, on and offshore fishing, museum, Ashburton River.
- Strong Indigenous cultural heritage exists throughout the region however yet to be delivered successfully
to tourist markets.
- Pastoral heritage is also a point of interest to visitors and forms an integral part of the story of the Pilbara
landscape over the past 100 years. Although overshadowed in modern day times by the resources sector,
pastoral stations continue to operate throughout the region and offer visitors a different and rewarding
station stay experience. Mt Florence Station Stay is currently the only station stay accommodation
promoted via the Tom Price Visitor centre.
- Tom Price offers a relatively high standard and range of community recreational and leisure facilities and
potentially open to use by visitors.
- Holiday and leisure travellers predominantly travel to region via self drive vehicles and therefore travel
plans can be influenced by effective signage along major road access routes and via Visitor Information
Centres.
- Region has relatively good transport infrastructure considering the geographical isolation and distances
involved. Air services between Perth and Paraburdoo are high frequency (daily) and standard of existing
roadworks is considered very good. This high standard of infrastructure is due to the level of local resource
industry investment. Tourism is well placed to leverage off this extensive resource industry investment.
- Strong growth in local populations’ discretionary incomes as the resources industry enjoys sustained
growth periods.
- There is increased focus on regional investment by the State Government into the Pilbara, better delivery
of facilities and services, the Pilbara Cities Vision and Royalties for Regions programs good examples of this
increased focus. Currently there are good opportunities to source a range of government grant programs.
2.5.2 Weaknesses
- The region has a very strong focus upon the resources industry. Service providers such as accommodation
and transport operators focus primarily on meeting the needs of the resources sector at the expense of
the tourist market. There is an identifiable lack of accommodation supply for tourist markets throughout
the Pilbara and this is also the case for the Shire of Ashburton.
- The Shire is located at the junction of the three major tourism RTO’s (ANW, ACC, and AGO) and in addition
to being a strength it is also a potential weakness in that the Shire may “miss out” on opportunities by
being located one each region’s extremities. The onus is therefore on the Shire to actively drive initiatives
with these RTOs.
- The nature of the visitor servicing industry is that it is difficult to generate revenue from providing this
service and therefore a direct cost to operators of Visitor Centres such as the Shire. There is a consumer
expectation that information at Visitor Centres will be provided free of charge. Visitor servicing requires
ongoing investment of resources to maintain delivery of effective services. The lack of a large local tourist
accommodation base denies both the Tom Price and Onslow Visitor Centres the ability to generate
significant tourist accommodation booking commissions and thereby offset everyday operational costs.
- Difficulty in sourcing suitably qualified tourism and hospitality trained professional for employment in
local industry and Shire tourism roles.
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