Page 274 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 31 May 1989
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annual marketing calendar. This calendar, put down as an annual, in advance, promotions and marketing calendar identifying specific events and targeting specific markets and groups, should ensure it includes all tourism offices - that is, initiatives from Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra - and not, as has happened in the past, having marketing initiatives in Melbourne and Sydney coincide or in very close proximity to one another.
Adequate cooperation both financially and more generally between the public and private sectors must, and I am sure will, happen with the advent of this tourist commission. The public sector should also include the national institutions, as they must contribute to the coordinated promotions.
Familiarisations for publicity purposes need to be stepped up and I believe that the use of consultant marketing for specific initiatives needs serious consideration. While I would like to recognise the very valuable work done by certain staff members in the current bureau, better special events marketing, including continual searching for other events, is essential. I am sure we all recognise the contribution of events such as the Canberra Festival and Floriade, but it is now necessary that the search for unique events continues. As we become more competitive with the rest of Australia, we need new and different things, not the sorts of things that every city has. Currently just about every city around Australia has a festival at some time or other.
The opening in early August of the convention centre places the ACT in a very new, different and competitive marketplace. However, I believe the ACT is perhaps a little handicapped when we look at convention and conference suitability in Canberra. While many of the national associations have their head offices here, and they obviously will look to Canberra as the logical place for national conferences, currently transport infrastructure is lacking and, unless the very fast train and an international airport become not figments of our imaginations but reality, it will always be difficult to move large numbers of convention delegates in quickly and with minimum inconvenience, thus enhancing its attractiveness.
While the international airport remains a Federal Government responsibility, the tourism industry must be given unqualified support to ensure adequate visitor numbers arrive in this city and, while here, spend their dollars. It is absolutely imperative for the balanced development of the ACT tourism infrastructure that unqualified support for an international airport be part of that.
Whilst I have not addressed regional cooperation, the need for adequate statistical information and better signage, they are areas that are nevertheless important and
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