July 24, 2017
An all-day meeting hosted by the South Burnett Regional Council in Kingaroy on Thursday has decided to do nothing about changing existing tourism arrangements.
The meeting was called to assess future directions for local tourism after dissatisfaction with Southern Queensland Country Tourism (SQCT) led several tourism operators to form a new Visit South Burnett local tourism organisation.
South Burnett Mayor Keith Campbell said he believed tourism was “at a crossroads” after revenues at the region’s two lakeside tourist parks dropped by $225,000 at a time when SQCT claimed tourism numbers had hit a record high.
However, Thursday’s meeting – which was attended by about 50 South Burnett tourism operators as well as Mayor Campbell and councillors – turned into a day-long talkfest where many ideas were floated but nothing was decided.
The Nanango Tourism and Development Association, which sent along four members, said they felt the meeting had been a pointless exercise.
“The workshop was facilitated by three people and we heard much the same things we have heard at tourism meetings for the past decade,” NaTDA member Barry Green said.
“We came to the meeting in the hope we’d see things change, but came away disillusioned.”
Blackbutt Avocado Festival chairman Jeff Connor said he felt the meeting had covered many points about local tourism that were already well known, but came up with nothing new.
Former South Burnett Tourism Association president Bernie Cooper said he was interested to hear a new local tourism organisation had been formed but wondered why many of the people involved in it had not been active when the area last had a tourism association.
“At the start of the day I thought the meeting had been called to make some changes in our region’s current tourism set-up,” he said.
“But by the end of the day it became apparent that nothing was likely to change, and I think that’s a pity.”
Visit South Burnett president Jason Kinsella said members of the new local tourism association would like to adopt a similar model to Tourism Noosa.
Tourism Noosa has 600 members drawn from Noosa’s business community and is supported by Noosa Shire Council.
Related articles:
- SQCT Tourism Claims Disputed
- SQCT Defends Tourism Record
- Council To Host Tourism Workshop
- Toowoomba To Stay In Tourism Group
- South Burnett May Leave SQC Regional Tourism Board
- Tourism Spending Breaks Record
- Tourism Revolt May Spread
- Local Voice On Breakaway Tourism Group
- Record Visitors To Tourism Region
- MP Encourages Tourism Delegates
- ‘Time Right’ For Tourism Discussion
- SQC Tourism Drops 3.3pc
The hardest thing to do is ‘make change’. This meeting was the catalyst to galvanise people into action to make change for the better for the South Burnett. It is easy to stand by and do nothing, or participate for a brighter future.
Yes, I agree wholeheartedly with Jason Kinsella and Barry Green that if you lay back without any forthright comments and look for positive moves to strengthen visitors to the South Burnett, then you are just living the old scenario. This has often been the case of no positive moves from what is regarded as Kingaroy, for instance, with its population being the guiding light in any new moves to foster a greater input of visitors.
Surely the South Burnett can be the driving force in its own light and not rely on a region that stretches throughout the Darling Downs south to Warwick?
Why is there a new Tourism Board and committee developed with Toowoomba as its base to take over the same role as the long-standing enterprise stretching throughout southern Queensland, which has done little for our region?
It’s hard to imagine that with 50 operators present that nothing became of any forthright comments to support a greater input of tourists to our area.
What an appalling waste of ratepayers’ money and of people’s valuable time. It’s this sort of of indecisive outcome that projects a image to the rest of the world that we are not capable of managing our own future.
Paying a couple of professional facilitators to the tune of some thousands of ratepayers dollars to facilitate a workshop so as to obtain a pre-ordained outcome would seem to me to be a very cynical exercise in bureaucratic mismanagement of this vitally important subject.
The present model is broken…it’s not working…it needs to be replaced….even blind Freddy can see that!
So why are we continually giving $60,000 away every year and receiving virtually nothing in return?
I sincerely hope that those good people with the passion, the vision and the fortitude to see this matter to its morally and logically correct outcome will prevail. We do not want to be the quiet backwaters of the tourist trail! We must not become just a name on the map on the way to other destinations.
Right now our councillors need to take very careful note of the mood of the community and the plight we find ourselves in. Now, especially, is the time for you to be seen to be showing strong leadership and direction.
Righting the obvious wrongs of the past has now become a priority. To ignore us it to do so at your peril. The South Burnett region deserves so much better and so much more.