Council changes tack on tourism

At its May 11 meeting Central Coast Council adopted a new way forward in respect of marketing tourism.

With the current tourism marketing contract, which had a total focus on digital marketing using social media, expiring on 30 June 2020

the current model for tourism management has been identified as requiring a change.

This is to ensure that the regional and strategic focus is achieved with the delivery of the Destination Brand Strategy, Tourism Opportunity Plan and meet the needs of the industry going forward to achieve the competitive market challenges of regional tourism.

A report to Council says it is time to recruit the appropriately skilled and experienced internal resources to provide a dedicated team to manage and deliver the services needed, inclusive of Visitor Services, website development and management, and the Tourism Opportunity Plan strategic activities.

Supporting Council's new direction the region's independent tourism industry organisation, Central Coast Tourism (CCT), welcomed the decision to bring tourism marketing and coordination facilities "in house".

CCT's Chairman, David Jewell said that, on balance, the CCT Board believed that the decision was the right one, particularly as it would integrate tourism services and planning across the whole of Council's economic development strategy.

"Given the need to coordinate the Central Coast's tourism industry's recovery from Covid-19, we believe it is important to rule a line under the issues of the past and move forward together with Council", Mr Jewell said.

"The experiment of the previous Administrator to outsource all tourism services to a commercial operator not based on the Coast failed to live up to the expectations of the then decision makers.