Campaspe Shire Council looks to broaden tourism

Cheryl Hammer, who was appointed to council’s new tourism development role in August, agrees that there needs to be a greater focus on the whole region.

“Tourism as a whole from Campaspe, there is a sense that it has been quite Echuca-centric previously,” Ms Bradshaw said.

Ms Bradshaw has been using her time in the role to travel across the shire to discuss the matter with businesses.

“I’m spending a lot of time out in the smaller towns, as well as Echuca, and with our neighbouring colleagues over in Murray River Council, with a lot of discussion around that Campaspe-wide sort of view,” she said.

“A lot of people have been really impressed and really taken every opportunity to engage.”

Ms Hammer and Ms Bradshaw are also part of the team working on an economic development and tourism strategy to shape what the region’s industry should look like over the next five years.

“There will be a strategy that’s due for release early next year, and out of those strategies falls an action plan,” Ms Bradshaw said.

“Part of the strategy is identifying what’s really key for the first little bit and then what’s sort of a longer-term plan or what’s a longer-term vision around what that looks like. It’s about getting that tourism back after the pandemic and after the floods. It’s about reactivating that space.”

The community engagement angle from individuals and businesses has been an exciting part of the process.

“That’s what the exciting part about it is — council gets to actually deliver on some of the things that the community or businesses and operators have asked of us. Our tourism operators were a large number of the people that did take up those opportunities and were really heavily represented in the consultation process,” Ms Bradshaw said.

“I think there’s a lot of exciting stuff to come up in the tourism space.”