The South Australian Tourism Commission (SATC) and Local Government Association of South Australia (LGA) are forging a stronger partnership to help build sustainable tourism. Discussions are underway on how this could be formalised in an agreement intended to include a number of priority projects for the forthcoming year.
These are designed to improve the delivery of strategic tourism and economic development related initiatives for the benefit of Local Government and the tourism industry.
The first of these projects is the Local Government Engagement in Tourism survey. It will explore Local Government’s involvement in a wide range of areas including the integration of tourism related responsibilities within council, strategic planning and implementing tourism strategies, as well as resourcing and assisting the industry in promotion and management of tourism.
The survey draws on earlier work commenced in 1998 by the Country Victoria Tourism Council. This has received a positive response from Local Government with many councils achieving great improvement over the subsequent six year period.
The findings from this survey will be used to develop an LGA Tourism Policy and subsequent Tourism Strategy. In addition, it will provide a clearer understanding of where the issues, priorities and opportunities are for Local Government in relation to tourism. Each Council will be provided with a comparative analysis of their involvement in tourism against the State average, and will identify areas of excellence as well as those areas requiring improvement.
The survey is being conducted across all South Australian Councils during November. For further details please contact Ben Clark at the South Australian Tourism Commission on (08) 8463 4598.
