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<\/a><\/a>July 15, 2015<\/strong><\/p>\n A survey of visitors using Murgon’s 48-hour free camping ground has lent support to the idea the facility is capturing a completely new, untapped market that was formerly bypassing the town.<\/p>\n At Wednesday night’s meeting of the Murgon Business and Development Association (MBDA), members heard the Murgon Visitor Information Centre had been surveying camping ground users over the past month.<\/p>\n The Centre asked users if they would pass through the area if the camping ground closed down, or seek alternative accommodation instead.<\/p>\n 85 per cent of survey respondents said they would pass through the area if the camping ground did not exist; 15 per cent said they would seek other accommodation.<\/p>\n Cr Kathy Duff said the survey results seemed to support the MBDA’s belief the camping ground was capturing a market Murgon had formerly missed.<\/p>\n President Leo Geraghty said he had been monitoring visitors using the camping ground over the survey period, and found they were respecting the 48-hour maximum stay limit.<\/p>\n He said a “receipt box” at the camping ground – which encourages visitors to drop receipts for any spending they made in town while staying at the camping ground – led him to believe the facility had generated at least $30,000 extra for Murgon businesses over the last three months.<\/p>\n Nonetheless the MBDA will ask the South Burnett Regional Council to replace old signs pointing to the former Murgon Caravan Park with new ones that will direct short-stay visitors to the renamed camping ground, and remove blue caravan symbols on nearby roads to make it clear the camping ground is not a caravan park.<\/p>\n The group have recently placed laminated signs in the camping ground to emphasise the maximum permitted stay is 48 hours.<\/p>\n The new signs also highlight local attractions in the hope visitors can be persuaded to extend their stay using the town’s commercial accommodation facilities.<\/p>\n Cr Kathy Duff gave the meeting a quick run-through of the 2015-2016 South Burnett Regional Council Budget handed down on June 29.<\/strong><\/p>\n She said items that would be of particular interest to Murgon included:<\/p>\n Cr Duff said it was also possible Campbells Road Bridge would be replaced in the coming year, though the Council was still waiting for tenders to come in before making a final decision.<\/p>\n The MBDA has become the first of the region’s business associations to react to Tuesday’s news that the South Burnett Tourism Association has been dissolved.<\/strong><\/p>\n President Leo Geraghty said he thought the $50,000 annual fee the South Burnett Regional Council was paying to belong to the Southern Queensland Country Regional Tourism Organisation would be better spent locally.<\/p>\n “I think we get very little benefit from belonging to this group,” Mr Geraghty said.<\/p>\n He said if the Council has now appointed a Tourism Officer, it should give this new appointee the funds instead to be used to sell the region directly, rather than hope that a Toowoomba-based organisation would do it.<\/p>\n He said direct funding of local tourism promotion was something the MBDA supported.<\/p>\n* * *<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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