Praise for Riverland visitor guide

Posted November 30, 2012 13:13:37

The South Australian Tourism Commission says it has had plenty of positive feedback to its decision to reintroduce a Riverland visitor guide.

The commission recently announced it would produce separate visitor guides for the Riverland and Murraylands next year, after four years of a combined regional guide.

It hosted an industry forum in Berri last week, to discuss the Riverland guide with local businesses and tourism operators.

The commission's marketing director, David O'Loughlin, says the need to separate the two regions was clear.

"Part of our marketing campaign was to go into the regions and look at the unique propositions of those regions," he said.

"What we found very clearly was that there was a distinct difference in the offering of the Murraylands or the lower Murray and the Riverland and it's our belief that the visitor guides should reflect that."

Mr O'Loughlin says the decision to produce separate guides is a great thing for Riverland tourism.

"What we've actually found is that they're actually more important and more relevant when people are actually in a region," he said.

"We've got lots of other marketing activity that brings people to the region but when they're in the region, we know through research, that when they have a visitor guide in their hand, they spend more, they stay more nights and experience more activities."

The Riverland visitor guide will be available in the middle of next year.

Destination Riverland says it hopes local businesses will embrace the opportunity to advertise in the new guides.

Chief executive Tony Sharley says he expects the Riverland-only guide will encourage greater involvement.

"The most recent Murray River visitor guide only attracted 23 advertisers from within the Riverland and we know that there are more than 100 tourism-related businesses in the region, so this is a way of ensuring that we get greater participation," he said.

"It means that around any theme, whether it's food and wine, whether it's events and festivals, there's more likely to be more advertisers under those major categories which then appeals to the tourists because it looks as if there's more to do in that region."

Topics: tourism, travel-and-tourism, berri-5343, renmark-5341