Three local governments in the Great Southern region in Western Australia have formed an alliance to further economic development and future prosperity of the region.
The City of Albany, Shire of Denmark and Shire of Plantagenet have partnered to form the Lower Great Southern Economic Alliance.
The council areas have jointly funded an Executive Support Officer to guide and facilitate its implementation.
A representative from the Great Southern Development Commission has also been invited to attend Alliance meetings.
Albany Mayor Dennis Wellington said the City was excited about the partnership, and uniting with Plantagenet and Denmark to promote and grow the region would bring significant long-term benefits.
“What we want to achieve is to encourage business and industry to come to the region, establish and provide new jobs and opportunities for our communities.
“Recognising and building on our current strengths and existing industries like tourism and agriculture is equally important as attracting new industries, so by collaborating the Alliance can maximise the benefits to the districts of the three participating councils.”
The Alliance’s first priority is to prepare a regional Destination Marketing Strategy with support from Tourism WA to promote the region by creating a clear and unified tourism vision across the region.
Marketforce has been appointed by the Alliance as the destination marketing consultant. Marketforce will visit the region this month, to conduct interviews, host workshops with key stakeholders and engage with all those who have an interest in tourism via two community forums.
Plantagenet Shire President Ken Clements said it was an exciting project that would also give the region a stronger voice when lobbying the State and Federal governments.
“The Destination Marketing Strategy will set some goals and strategic actions for us to achieve sustainable tourism across the region with buy-in from all stakeholders.
“It will be based on thorough research and clearly detail the competitive advantages our region has, formulate a destination positioning statement and regional destination brand and identify target markets and key marketing messages.”
Denmark Shire President David Morrell said the success of Margaret River as a destination brand for the South West region was an example of what the new Alliance is trying to achieve.
