The Beagle Editor, Another summer season passes and many will now sit back and measure the outcomes comparing this year to the previous in their ledgers and journals. What will our tourism managers report? on tourist traps …
According to the Technical Services Brief (TSC) published by Bega Valley Shire Council (BVSC), the overall objective of the shire’s Tourism Marketing Services (TMS) is:
“The delivery of tourism destination marketing, development and regional leadership activities that grow the local visitor economy and create maximised, demonstrable economic outcomes for the benefit of the whole Bega Valley Shire.”
Well, the Bega Valley Shire Residents & Ratepayers Association (BVSRRA) thinks that’s terrific, given that the best objective that the current contract provider, Sapphire Coast Tourism(SCT), could apparently come-up with during the past 10 years was to grow the number of overnight visitor stays.
Of course, as the BVSRRA has previously highlighted, SCT not only failed to achieve that single objective but if its performance had also been measured by “maximised, demonstrable economic outcomes” being achieved for the shire, it would have failed to achieve that objective as well, as is clear from data published on BVSC’s own website.
The TSC is one of four documents published by BVSC in its recent Tender Request for the provision of the shire’s Tourism Marketing Services.
The so-called ‘key deliverables’ of those services are also spelt out in the TSC & while they canvass a variety of activities that will need to be addressed in pursuing those deliverables, there are no specific & measurable outcomes that are required to be met by the service provider as performance obligations.
The closest we get to specific objectives or outcomes is a reference to the task of managing & implementing the Sapphire Coast Destination Marketing Plan (SCDMP) “through a yearly activity plan including specific actions, projects, tasks, campaigns and aligned to broader regional destination management objectives” (whatever they might be).
But that is still more about activity, rather than outcomes.
What is particularly notable about the content of the TSC document is how little its substance aligns with the recommendations in the Strategic Inputs Summary prepared by BVSC’s Tourist Industry Liaison Group (TLG) & which, in turn, seem at odds with the recommendations contained in the Review of Tourism Services in the Bega Valley Shire (2016) report which informed the TILG’s review.
The full text of this Media Release is available here … http://www.begavalleyshireratepayers.asn.au/files/Bega-Valley-Shire-Residents---Ratepayers-Association---Media-Release---on-tourist-traps---02.04.2018.pdf
John Richardson
Secretary/Treasurer
Bega Valley Shire Residents & Ratepayers Association
