Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
regional and national tourism councils will need to introduce and imple-
ment accreditation schemes along the lines of retail tourism accreditation.
In Western Australia the aim of the Tourism Western Australia Council
5
is to
have 1500 accredited tourism businesses by 2020.
These businesses will be:
•
quality accredited;
•
listed on media releases;
•
bookable online;
•
have an effective marketing and workforce plan;
•
all staff trained to Cert
3
level; and
•
all managers trained to Cert
4
level.
The TWA approach is a five-step approach:
Step
1
Accreditation
Step
2
Distribution
Step
3
Advice via workshops
Step
4
Training
Step
5
Awards
According to a report on tourism in June 2013 produced by WA Tourism,
6
Australia attracted 22.1 million visitors in the previous 12 months, 9.1%
of whom visited Western Australia. The total spend by tourists was
AUS$7.5 billion an increase of 3.3% over the year before. Most tourists
look for part of their tourism experience to be around engagement with
local food.
One of the main challenges for independent food tourism operators will
be getting their message across when large businesses will be spending large
amounts of money convincing consumers they are also local businesses with
food and community factors in their business strategies.
We believe we will see a divergence in the market place.
Large corporate business will continue to expand and try to edge their
way into food tourism.
Retailing and tourism will become difficult to distinguish as separate
activities; consumers will both buy online and look for a tourism experience,
often from the same provider.
Regional growers and added value suppliers in the food tourism sector
will be encouraged to join forces and develop regional marketing strategies.
This means that some small enterprises will lose some of their individual
marketing prowess, but the overall campaigns will grow tourism in specific
regions.
There will be a shift in tourism; local tourism will grow with weekend-
away activities based around food increasing in popularity, whilst food
tourism in western countries will see more visitors from Asian countries ven-
turing out into country areas looking for a new adventure.
For businesses involved in the sector, one of the biggest challenges will
be the same challenge facing every other person in business: getting to grips
with communications with potential, existing and past consumers.
