Heidi Kraak
The Latrobe Valley is experiencing an increase in the number of tourists visiting the region from Melbourne, according to the peak tourism organisation for the region.
Destination Gippsland chief executive Terry Robinson said visitors had increased in the last year, particularly.
“When we measure tourism, we count how many nights visitors are staying,” he said.
“That has increased in the last year, it has been an upward trend over the last number of years … and is consistent across the board.”
Mr Robinson said tourists were visiting the Latrobe Valley for a “host of reasons”.
“They might be coming for an event, but whatever the motivation is, they are tending to stay longer,” he said.
“They are getting off the highway and exploring more parts of Gippsland, from the Latrobe Valley people can travel to Tarra Bulga National Park … Walhalla, Mount Baw Baw, which is a snow experience.”
Mr Robinson credited the trend to the “efforts over time by a lot of people to keep educating people and motivating people to see all the things that are available in Gippsland”.
“People within the local community might identify the area with [the power industry], but for the person in Melbourne, interstate or even internationally, they are not as aware or concerned by that,” he said.
“They just see a region with incredible natural beauty, lots of experiences, food and wine, accommodation … people are just making their decision to travel to Gippsland on merit.
“I don’t know if there is as much stigma within the region as some people might believe. We’ve done some research and I think people are seeing it with fresh eyes, people are telling their friends and the numbers are starting to reflect.”
Mr Robinson said the Latrobe Valley’s infrastructure made it an ideal location to hold big events and that the organisation was preparing a food and drink guide for Gippsland to boost tourism.
“Latrobe is really well positioned to host great events,” he said.
“When it comes to an event, we want them to arrive early and to do other things, we really want to turn what could be a one or two-day [stay] into a three or four-day visit.”
Brigadoon Cottages owners Michelle and Edward Barraclough said they had also observed an increasing number of visitors up from Melbourne in the last year.
“It has been a quite noticeable increasing of bookings for us in the past year,” Ms Barraclough said.
“From Monday to Friday we have corporate bookings, which is really good for us, people working in the courts or in the power stations or whatever is happening in the Valley.
“Most of the weekends we are almost fully booked by people from Melbourne.”
Ms Barraclough said about 85 to 90 per cent of weekend visitors were from Melbourne, visiting for different reasons.
“People will come from Melbourne for leisure,” she said.
“Most of them just have a quiet weekend away. A small percentage of people come to visit their family.
“Another percentage, a group we call ‘the tourists’, come to our place, particularly in August or July, they are going to Mount Baw Baw. Also in that category we have people that come to explore the area.”
For more information about the work of Destination Gippsland, visit destinationgippsland.com.au.
