BUSHFIRE RECOVERY UPDATE
The fires have significantly impacted Kangaroo Island, the Adelaide Hills and the rest of our state. Now with the Coronavirus and subsequent travel restrictions, many tourism businesses are doing it tough.
TiCSA Chairman – Eoin Loftus and I recently attended the bushfire recovery meeting in Kangaroo Island and the Adelaide Hills. As we are now in bushfire recovery mode, the key priorities we are seeing and hearing from members have been distilled into four key areas (see below). We are using this information to advocate with government both at state and national levels to provide direct support.
Infrastructure (repair and replacement):
- enabling infrastructure (i.e. roads and power signage);
- public visitor facilities / services (i.e. campgrounds and toilets); and
- private visitor facilities / services (i.e. hotels, caravan parks and attractions).
Tourism Icons (visitor attractions which motivate people to book a trip):
- need to get these attractions / facilities open with temporary infrastructure to allow visitors to come back; and
- opportunity to renew with even better experiences for visitors and design with greater resilience to future fire events (longer-term).
Tourism Businesses (immediate support to ensure the affected businesses survive and are ready for when visitation returns to normal levels):
- cashflow management (i.e. funding cancellations and stock losses);
- fixed costs management (i.e. repaying finance on assets and general operational costs); and
- workforce retention and skills (i.e. business continuity management and business resilience planning).
Driving Demand:
- communications, marketing and PR.
I invite you to share your feedback on the above priorities by contacting me at shaun@ticsa.com.au.
Tourism Impact Survey
To further assist our advocacy efforts, we need to assess the scale of the challenges facing our industry. That said, I ask that you complete the latest TiCSA Sentiment Survey as we have added several questions related to the bushfires.
In collaboration with the Australian Tourism Industry Council, I also encourage you to take five minutes to complete another survey which will help inform the national advocacy work we are undertaking.
Federal Advocacy and Tourism Recovery Package
TiCSA, through the Australian Tourism Industry Council (ATIC), has raised key policy issues and sought a significant response from the Federal Government. ATIC attended a tourism roundtable in Sydney a few weeks ago, while I attended a roundtable with the Prime Minister and other peak organisations. Our key message in these meetings was that international coverage and publicity resulting from the bushfire emergency will affect all Australian tourism, including South Australia.
The Federal Government has announced a $76 million tourism recovery package which was warmly welcomed by TiCSA. Importantly, this package includes funding for marketing, media famils and assistance for businesses to attend the 2020 Australian Tourism Exchange to send the message that South Australia is open for business.
Lastly, I ask that you engage with the South Australian Tourism Commission’s #BookThemOut campaign and Tourism Australia’s national domestic campaign – Holiday Here This Year. Both of these great campaigns aim to support affected businesses, drive visitation and reinvigorate the visitor economy.
For information support services available, click here.
Photo: Adelaide Hills | Ben Goode