Food and wine take centre stage in new West Australian tourism strategy
The West Australian Government has unveiled a new strategy aimed at boosting the state's culinary tourism industry.
Currently the state's tourism sector generates almost $9 billion in visitor spending each year.
The Government aims to increase that to $12 billion over the next five years, with a focus on food and wine.
Speaking at the 2015 WA Tourism Conference this morning, Premier Colin Barnett said the future was bright for the state's tourism sector.
But he said the Federal Government had got it wrong when it came to marketing regions rather than specific destinations.
"The Australian Government promotes 'Australia's North West', but no-one calls it that these days," Mr Barnett said.
"You talk about Broome as a destination or you talk about the Kimberley or Pilbara.
"People don't say they're going to England, they say they're going to London or to Paris or New York ... it's the same here."
Mr Barnett also said more needed to be done to promote Perth as a centre.
"We need to bring people into Western Australia, hopefully they spend some time in Perth, then encourage them into the South West, into the Kimberley or wherever."
In an attempt to boost visitor numbers, the State Government has launched Taste 2020, a strategy which includes initiatives to improve the quality of service, develop food and wine trails and expand Aboriginal cultural experiences.
It will also concentrate on growing the Margaret River Gourmet Escape into a leading international festival.
Collaborative approach key to success
The strategy is backed by recent research showing culinary tourism attracts about 400,000 visitors to WA each year.
Tourism WA chief executive Stephanie Buckland said government and tourism organisations needed to work more collaboratively to promote the city and the rest of the state.
"I think one of the most important things we can do is to make sure that we're sharing research and insights with each other, we understand exactly what our visitors are looking for and we're working together to target our marketing to those visitors," Ms Buckland said.
"It's incumbent upon us to be as smart as we possibly can with our marketing dollars, make sure that we're collaborating, make sure that we're utilising research and data so that we can make the best of the funding we're provided."
'Paddock to plate' a way forward
Ms Buckland is supportive of a food- and wine-based tourism strategy.
"This whole notion of 'paddock to plate' is really appealing for the consumer," she said.
"For example the fish that is being caught locally is being prepared and served locally by a local restaurant.
"We really want to make sure that particularly in regional areas where we've got such a great diversity of produce that that can actually occur seamlessly for the producer."
Source: ABC News, Charlotte Hamlyn, 22nd September 2015
Originally published as: Food and wine take centre stage in new West Australian tourism strategy
