Local Government Tourism Health Check

Tourism Alliance Victoria has completed its second local government tourism health check. Building on the first round in 2002, the 2005 research showed an increase in the median tourism investment of local councils to $365,215.

On average Councils spend 0.89% of their total budgets on tourism with some spending up to 10%. In general regionally based Councils invest more in tourism than those in metropolitan areas.

The research also highlighted the fact that Councils scrutinise their tourism budgets more closely through a mixture of internal or external reviews and performance measurement against KPIs.

RESEARCH CONCLUSIONS
The major concern is the low level of support for tourism development by local government, demonstrated through:
1)poor resourcing of tourism in many councils;
2)lack of inclusion of tourism in key planning and policy functions;
3)lack of coordination between tourism units and other council units with tourism-related functions.

HOWEVER local government tourism managers vseemk to have many capacity enhancing structures in place – tourism units or their equivalent; strategic plans; tourism related objectives; systems for evaluating progress towards those objectives.

These strengths can be used to improve intra-government coordination of tourism functions and creating better awareness of the value of tourism for communities and industry.

The Local Government Tourism Health Check research was a joint project between Tourism Alliance and the Centre for Regional Tourism Research. The aim was to measure the capacity of Local Government to develop and manage a destination for tourism over time and to provide information about how to improve key aspects of management to enable tourism to meet triple bottom line principles.

FOR MORE INFO CONTACT: Bindi Gove Tourism Alliance Vic 03 9650 83599