Tourism Industry and Regional Development in South West Australia

Discuss about the Regional Tourism Development Strategy.

Western Australia’s economy’s largest contributor is tourism and also plays a role in the long term prosperity of the state. A diversified range of regional economies is encouraged by Western Australia’s tourism industry along with offering of long term development opportunities in the regional areas. To the primitive communities, tourism offers business development, employment and maintenance of culture. The tourism industry along with offering economic opportunities, it also mutually supports as well as relies on the objectives of environmental conservation. The local and regional managers need to understand and communicate the value of tourism in order to enhance the level of management and to access resources for strategy development. Along with their focus on economic value of tourism, it is equally important to focus on the techniques of social access, and cultural and environmental value. The south west destination of Western Australia is not just a destination but also offers multiple experiences, quirky and wildlife encounters along with breath-taking scenery. The South West Australian region offers natural beaches, forests, caves, beautiful vineyards, which all can be enjoyed in a single day. The West corner of Western Australia is around twenty-three thousand kilometres, which consists of thousands of kilometres of coastline. The destination has multiple national parks for the nature and wildlife experience. The South west corner of Australia stretches from the Bunbury to the Bremer Bay. This region is divided into five sub-regions, namely; the Great Southern region, the Margaret River Wine region, Geographe, the Blackwood River Valley, and the Southern Forest (O’Donnell, 2015).

The key objective of the systems approach is to explore the structure and processes for encouraging innovation. The regional tourism in the systems approach gives the understanding of the connection between individuals and the organization and have a common interest in the region’s tourism, economic, social and environmental development. The systems of regional tourism are very closely related to the organizations that are outside the region. These organizations include the organizations of the tourism industry, the transit regions, organizations, and the organizations responsible for the region’s education, legislation, facilitate and regulations (Australia’s South West, 2018).

The report explains the systems theory in application to the destination region. The systematic framework also helps in examining the various environments of tourism like economic, social, cultural, and physical. This paper also identifies various stakeholders and their roles in the tourist destination development. The below map shows the geographical and shire boundaries of the South West Australian region.

The Role of Systems Approach in Tourism Destination Regional Development

The systems theory refers to the explanatory structures that help in getting a framework for specific systems methodology. In this theory a system is the interlinking network of different parts that demonstrates synergistic properties resulting in greater value of the whole than the sum of all the parts. It also helps to study the environment’s influence on the system as in a systems perspective while studying a complex situation, it considers the numerous interactions between the elements. When a systems approach is applied to tourism destination regions, it helps in understanding the complexities of the economy, tourism industries, multiple interactions, local communities, and the environment and hence helps in resolving problems associated with the tourism industry. Hence, this approach helps by providing the means to explain the complexities of the activities associated with tourism as well as its management in the destination region (Barnett, 2017). 

The tourism system comprises of five elements (1) tourists generating regions, (2) the departing tourists, (3) tourist destination regions, (4) returning tourists, (5) transit regions. All these elements in combination enable the practical occurrence of tourism. These elements are in consideration with the humanist approach as there is an inclusion of people or the tourists in the elements because in absence of tourists, the tourist system would not exist. All the elements of the tourism system interact with the environment which can be social, cultural, technical, political, legal and economic. All these environmental factors in some or the other way, shape the tourism system and the tourism system in turn affects the environmental factors.

The tourism destination regions are the traveller’s destination category chosen for their stay in that particular destination for gaining experience. When the tourism destination region is studied, it involves consideration of the destination region in relation to the remaining four elements and the system environment.

Stakeholder group	Contribution to the destination (using two/three bullet points)
Public Authorities	·       Creating, implementing, administering and regulating the legislations and regulations. ·       Marketing and promotional activities ·       Conservation of natural resources and heritages ·       Work towards tourism development ·       Protect and develop the destination region ·       Support and fulfil the public facilities like security, water supply, electricity, telecommunication, etc.
Local Communities	·       Practice conservation of culture and nature as a regular way of life ·       Help in establishment of guidelines for protecting the valuable natural resources (Dolnicar, 2008). ·       Foster tourism management ·       Help in providing local produce of products and services ·       Be friendly with the tourists to help them also practice ecotourism and help them get the cultural experience.

Stakeholder refers to any group or individual who affects or in turns gets either positively or negatively impacted by the achievement of particular organization’s objectives. There are multiple stakeholders in tourism who directly or indirectly participate in activities of tourism. These stakeholders include the public authorities, local communities and indigenous groups, and various business enterprises in tourism, tourism professionals, governmental and non-governmental organizations, voluntary actors, and the media (O’Donnell, 2015).

In a regional destination the external stakeholders hold a huge importance in building the capacity of that destination. These external stakeholders represent the education, health, transport and emergency services of a certain destination, this also includes the tourism and stakeholders with economic interests. The other stakeholders in destination management other than the stakeholders from tourism industry are government of the country, local community living in the destination region. All these stakeholders need to work collaboratively for development of the destination region.

Understanding the Stakeholder Roles in Destination Regional Development

Tourists travelling to destinations have different needs and differently feels attracted by different tourist destinations, have different expectations from their travel, want to indulge into different activities, make use of different entertainment facilities, etc. While all tourists are different, many also enjoy culture tourism, or just leisure activities, many require entertainment facilities for children at the destination, etc. This reason forms the basis of market segmentation that every tourist is different and the industry cannot cater to everyone’s need separately.

The international market segment being the most revenue generating segment as the growing number provides an opportunity to the South West Australian region to increase its tourism. To take advantage of the growth in the international markets, the region needs to increase its international visitors as compared to the other states of Australia. The international visitors and the interstate visitors prefer to visit the Shire Augusta Margaret River and the coastal areas. The inland of the South West Australia is noted to receive only thirty-five percent of visitors as mostly prefer going to the city of Busselton. The international visitors are generally within the age group of 25 – 65 years, they are either families and friends or free, independent travellers, who look for self-drive cars and Motorhomes, want to indulge into culture, heritage, adventure, wine and food. The international travellers can also be the age group of 18 -35 years who travel for casual work, or stay with friends, do camping, seek adventure and culture, and get self-drive experience in the nature (Wanga, et al., 2014).

Another target market of South West Australia are the Day Trip visitors who live within the half an hour to two hours travel distance. These visitors visit for popular sites or the sports enthusiasts, family groups, or groups of families, for socialising purposes, to indulge into nature, adventure-based activities, shopping, etc.

Travellers in today’s time travel mostly or select a particular destination not just for the visit’s purpose but also to gain experience. Such travellers are experienced travellers, they are always on lookout for authentic and personal experiences that they can talk about after their travel, they mostly involve into one or the other activities to get experience, are very social and enjoy interacting with local community people, they always travel with research of the destination region, are mostly adventurous and enjoy a variety of experiences, and for them contrasting experiences on a trip holds high value.

Experiences	Location in the destination region	Type of experiences (natural/cultural/urban)
Climbing and Abseiling	Brides cave near Margaret River	Outdoor adventure
Four Wheel Driving	Fitzgerald River National Park, Bremer Bay, Cheyne Beach	Outdoor adventure
Skydiving	Busselton	Outdoor adventure
Whale watching, country gardens, Wildflowers, Beaches, Waterfalls	Biodiversity Hotspots	Nature
Local food and wine experience	Perth	Eat and drink
Paintings, Jewellery, furniture, indigenous art	Ngilgi Cave, Bunbury City.	Culture, History and Arts
Wellness and days spas, beachside holiday,	Beaches	Relax and reconnect

Market Segmentation Targeting in South West Australia Tourism

The primary objective of the South West Australian tourism is to increase the number of visitors from the various segments to generate yield and help in the facilitation of growth and prosperity of the region and the tourism industry of South Western Australia. With focus on its objectives, the marketing campaigns designed are to inspire the consumers for a holiday in South West Australia, make a flow in the thought and planning of the consumers from their being aware of considering to planning a holiday in South West Australia, and to increase the amount spent by the visitors (Murphy, 2017).

Keeping its objectives in focus, the destination region applies its marketing strategy across the domestic and international markets. It works with various retail travel brands, online travel agents, airlines, etc. as these all have ability to sell a wide range of products and packages and to promote the destination region and attract the travellers to visit South West Australia. The promotional activities and advertisements are mostly to capitalize on raising the awareness related to the region’s experiences, adventure activities, culture and heritage. It all helps in driving the conversion and bookings and yield for the South West Australian tourism. The campaigns enable in creating awareness of key travel periods in the relevant markets.

Challenges:

1. A challenge for most of the South West Australian region is its similar climate, topography, geography and visitor experience, which largely affects the destination’s branding and positioning. The other competing regions have similar offerings in terms of experiences and few of the competing regions offer unique differences. The challenge is to develop a regional brand to create a difference from the nearby competing regions and captures the soul of the region.
2. The growth should be from the leisure segment in the domestic market, which poses various challenges. The interstate travel in Western Australia has been steady in the last decade. The main reasons for it are time, cost and distance which impacts the growth of leisure segment (CEDA, 2016).

Potential

1. The Australia’s South West Destination development strategy defines the priorities for its regional tourism. Keeping a focus on its objectives and the target market, the strategy identifies certain potential experiences that it can offer to its visitors. It has the potential to enhance its food and wine indulgences that can target the group of friends, couples, and the travellers who are food and wine enthusiasts and the interstate and intrastate visitors. This can offer the travellers a short getaway with a variety of attractions. It can offer secluded and scenic nature based discovery experience to the nature enthusiasts.
2. A holiday experience that targets retirees can also be a growth segment for its regions. This will have the opportunity to increase the visitors from interstate and intrastate locations considering that the ageing of the population continues. The marketing of such tourism focusses on what the target consumer wants and differs from the historical offerings of the region (Solutions, 2015).

Tourism Infrastructure – The South West Australian region can enhance its infrastructure to increase the range and scope of its visitor experiences. These include the inland driving at the Kepwari Like and Stockton lakes and the to the Black diamond pool. It should develop the Gnomesville as a tourist attraction place and a stopover, enhance the adventure experience of the Wellington National Park by upgrading the infrastructure of the national park, improve the recreational amenities along the Blackwood River (Tourism, 2018).

Positioning – The South West Australia can improve its positioning of various attractions to attract visitors of diverse interests. This includes, the improvement in positioning the experiences of adventure and nature, culture, food and wine indulgence, heritage, events and shopping experiences. It needs to do a unique positioning that offers appealing sustainable advantages to the travellers. It can position its adventurous travellers towards mountain biking destinations like the Collie and Wellington National Park, Donnybrook and Balingup. The travellers seeking for nature and adventure during their trips can be eyed by positioning the Ludlow Tuart Forest national park and the Wellington national park along with the nature’s experience with the river valleys, dams, beaches and forests (Carson & Macbeth, 2015). The positioning should be a combination of adventure, nature getaway with boutique experiences in the wine, food, shopping, culture and heritage. Such a positioning enables the region highlight its natural features that appeal to the outdoor adventure seekers and the visitors who want a nature based travel and help them also indulge in the boutique services that are also available.

Conclusion

Tourism offers wide range of cultural and economic benefits to the community. This project gains the understanding of destination region of South West Australia by linking the systems approach with the various elements and the environment. The document also gives an understanding of the various stakeholders involved in the development of a tourist destination. Stakeholders generally use the concept of tourist friendly destination to promote destination tourism. This concept offers positive value by creating reasonable costing packages, hospitality, helps in gaining right distribution to the target customer. Stakeholders play a very critical role in creating a tourist friendly destination. For the selected destination of South West Australia, the document covers the market segmentation which is a strategy used for strengthening the competitive advantage through selection of a most suitable target group of tourist consumers.

It is understood that for the engagement and rejuvenation in destination management and development, the facilitation of infrastructure by government, private investments and tourism products, all are very essential elements. The investors do not generally invest in regions that lack in infrastructure like roads, airports, water, power, telecommunication and sewerage.  The project understands that the public authorities play a crucial role in the infrastructure development that creates a favourable environment for tourism development and hence supports the development of tourism products. In South West Australia, a range of government agencies facilitate this process, these agencies include the Department of planning, department of environment conservation, department of regional development and lands, the department of state development, regional development commission, etc.

For continuously improving the visitor experience and to grow the tourism industry in the South West Australia in an increasing competitive environment, it is important for the region to continuously invest in its development, promotions of its refreshing destinations in a unique manner and the experiences that attracts visitors in and around the destination region. The development of destination when coupled with a strong brand positioning and marketing helps in enhancing the tourism industry of the region.

References

Australia’s South West, 2018. Welcome to the South West. [Online]
Available at: https://www.australiassouthwest.com/

Barnett, C., 2017. State government strategy for tourism in western australia 2020, Available at: https://www.ecotourism.org.au/assets/Resources-Hub-Destination-Management-Plans/Tourism-in-Western-Australia-2020.pdf

Carson, D. & Macbeth, J., 2015. Regional tourism cases- Innovation in regional tourism, Available at: https://sustain.pata.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/FINAL_Regional-Tourism-Cases.pdf

CEDA, 2016. CEDA state of the regions series: Regional development in Western Australia, Available at: https://www.drd.wa.gov.au/Publications/Documents/CEDA%20WA%20State%20of%20the%20Regions%20report.pdf

Dolnicar, S., 2008. Market segmentation in tourism, Available at: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/d7d0/1f681371015892e18fc7f68ea9a1dbd878bd.pdf

Murphy, C., 2017. WA State Tourism Strategy 2020: Western Australian Auditor General’s Report, Available at: https://audit.wa.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/report-2017_24-Tourism-1.pdf

O’Donnell, T., 2015. Tourism WA’s marketing strategy, Available at: https://www.tourism.wa.gov.au/Publications%20Library/Markets%20Events%20Campaigns/Great_Southern_Tourism_Forum_Albany_Domestic_Marketing.pdf

Solutions, E., 2015. Bunbury-wellington & boyup brook regional tourism development strategy 2015-2019, Available at: https://www.bunbury.wa.gov.au/pdf/Council/Bunbury%20Wellington%20Boyup%20Brook%20Tourism%20Strategy.pdf

Tourism Western Australia, 2010. Australia’S South West: Tourism Development Priorities, Available at: https://www.rdagreatsouthern.com.au/pdf/TDP_Australias_South_West.pdf

Tourism, S. C., 2018. “Stakeholders in tourism development” according to UNWTO. [Online]
Available at: https://www.safecoastaltourism.org/article/stakeholders-tourism-development-according-unwto

Wanga, J., Hayombe, P. & Mossberg, L., 2014. Stakeholder Involvement in Tourism Destination Development, Available at: https://www.theartsjournal.org/index.php/site/article/view/534