Dubbo is a thriving tourist hub with cultural, historic and landmark significance that attracts visitors from all across the world. If you mention Dubbo outside our City it’s more than likely someone has heard of it. This is where you come in.
Let’s consider for a moment how we can increase visitation to Dubbo. According to the latest stats from Tourism Research Australia, Dubbo had 376,000 overnight domestic visitors last financial year and they stayed for a total of 795,000 nights at an average of 2.1 nights each. In total we had 789,000 visitors to our City (including day-trippers). Impressive figures, but how can we further improve them and increase visitation numbers and the average number of nights they spend in Dubbo? Already the City advertises in print media and on television, has its own Twitter and Facebook profiles, and employs staff focussed on increasing visitation. All of these activities are contributing to ongoing awareness of the wonderful assets we have in Dubbo. Of course we have to justify expenditure and ensure it delivers a valid return on our investment – we don’t have a bottomless pit of money to throw at marketing our City. It just isn’t realistic to throw unlimited sums of money at marketing – despite the fact that each year visitation injects $203 million into our local economy. But we could do more, and we need to find a cost-effective way forward.
We all want the increased visitation but there isn’t an unlimited budget. What to do…
Wait! Maybe there is a solution. When I drill down further into the tourism stats, something jumps out at me: 36 per cent of overnight visitors to our region say the primary purpose of their stay is to visit friends and relatives and they stay an average of 3.0 nights. If there was a way to somehow increase the Visiting Friends and Relatives (VFR) market, we could deliver more visitors to Dubbo and possibly increase the overall average length of stay. The average expenditure per visitor per night in our region is $142 so if we could just increase our visitation by 5 per cent and the average length of stay increased 5 per cent, it would result in an additional $11.57 million injected into our economy.
Fortunately, I believe the solution is quite achievable at a minimal cost to our community. We don’t need to pay for advertising or employ additional staff. We actually have an untapped resource.
Dubbo has 41,211 ambassadors, otherwise known as “Residents of Dubbo”. I prefer to think of all of us as potential advocates of our wonderful City. I hereby formally appoint all of our residents with the official title of “Emissary of Dubbo”. We should all tell our friends and relatives what a wonderful place Dubbo is to visit. We could use social media. We could use the papers. We could tell our positive news stories to TV reporters. We could send an email or pick up the phone and call an old friend we haven’t spoken to for some time and invite them to visit. Tourist officers often boast about the fact we have 3,500 beds available in Dubbo for visitors to sleep in. I say we have 17,489 beds in Dubbo (averaging one spare bed per household). If every one of our 13,989 households hosted only one additional couple for three nights over the next year, we could achieve those 5 per cent targets. If we could host two additional couples for three nights, it would result in an additional $23.7 million injected into our economy.
When you consider the wonderful lifestyle we enjoy in Dubbo, it is not a hard job to “sell” the City to friends and relatives. Our number one tourist attraction is Taronga Western Plains Zoo, which recorded 220,000 ticket sales last year. If you haven’t visited for some time, take advantage of the Zoo’s “Mates Rates” where an adult ticket is only $19 or a family ticket is $45. This represents a saving of almost 70 per cent on normal prices and is available to anyone with a 2830 address. This local discount visit allows you to update your knowledge of the region’s chief tourist attraction and extoll even more virtues of Dubbo.
Dubbo has grown by 165 per cent over the past 43 years which is quite impressive compared to the 110 per cent average growth shown by similar Evocities in regional NSW – but I think we can do better.
With a commitment from our newly engaged 41,211 envoys, we can increase visitation and maybe some of the visitors will like the place so much, they will want to make the change from visitor to resident.
Let’s make it a challenge! I look forward to hearing about the additional people you bring to the City. Send me the unique ways you plan on attracting people to our wonderful City at mayor@dubbo.nsw.gov.au and have a wonderful Christmas.
Clr Mathew Dickerson
Mayor of the City of Dubbo