Tourism Manager for Visit Shoalhaven Coralie Bell was recently elected deputy Chair of the Australian Regional Tourism Ltd board. We spoke to Ms Bell to find out a bit about tourism in Southern NSW.

Tell me a bit about your role as Tourism Manager for Visit Shoalhaven?

It’s pretty diverse. Shoalhaven’s got a pretty big tourism chain. We look after visitor services in the region, but also we do marketing and promotion, we also deal with events and investors who come into the region, and we permit use of council land for events through my team.

What was your background before then?

I’ve done all sorts of things. I grew up in a tourism business, a small business with my family on the coast, so I’ve had that experience first hand, and then I’ve worked in business development, I’ve run my own businesses, most recently I was at Stockland doing marketing, so I’ve done a few different things.

What interested you about tourism in the Shoalhaven, what got you into that role?

I think it’s multi-faceted. I come from a business backgorund, so it’s been a great role for me because I get to use those skills, but I also am really passionate about tourism and out local area, so it was a nice synergy for me.

How did you end up on the board of Australian Regional Tourism?

I’ve been involved with the ART since I joined with Shoalhaven Regional Tourism, and they do a lot of work at a Federal level at a broader level than I can impact at a local level, so I think we’ve always got a better voice together than we do apart, so I was really excited about the opportunity to be on the board.

Can you tell me a bit about the region in tourism, what are the region’s strengths when it comes to tourism?

Our community’s always our biggest strength, and our natural area, so that’s what makes us unique for the whole region. And also our local personalities and who we are as a community is always what sets us apart from anywhere else.

How have you seen tourism changed in the time you’ve been working in that field?

The biggest change in tourism is definitely the customer at the moment. There’s been a few big changes in the way customers interact with our businesses, and the way that they expect service, and even the way they pay, right from paypass which never was before. So I think customer expectations are a huge thing, and I think we’re still as an industry chasing our tails sometimes to keep up with what the new generation wants. They say in the next ten years, 50% of our visitors will be the millennials, and they’re a very different visitor to the baby boomer. 

Can you give me a specific example of where that’s in action?

Social media is an obvious one that comes to mind, but it’s even in the disruptors like Airbnb and Uber and the share economy and how that’s impacted the industry overall. It’s really a reflection of the consumer demand, and how they want to interact with our products these days.

How do you think the south east of NSW has reacted to this, is it still a work in progress?

It’s absolutely a work in progress, especially in regional NSW because firstly our connectivity, the infrastructure’s not always there. I know I still have retail businesses in key locations that have to run out the front and hold the Eftpos machine in the air to even get Eftpos transactions, and so there’s an infrastructure downfall, but there’s also a skills gap. We’re all so busy running our businesses that it’s a very different skill set to have and understand even how to claim a Google place page, or what to do with a review. It’s a very different way of doing business. So we do a lot in the business development and education space with small business, but it’s something that takes a lot to learn and get your head around.

Where do you see tourism going in this region?

Tourism across the state and country is one of the forecast growth areas, and it’s a growing industry, it’s fast being taken seriously by the state government and the federal government, because it’s no longer just accommodation. Twenty years ago tourism was accommodation, and no one thought about it as much else. But it’s also food vendors, it’s restaurants, it’s chefs, it’s tourist, it’s even the plumbers and the builders, there’s cleaners, there’s consultants, there’s marketing agencies. It’s a much broader industry than it ever was before. With the reduction in seasonality across some of the areas, and the improvements to the Canberra airport, really we’ve got so much potential.

Australia’s moving towards a more service based economy, is that something you’re seeing having an effect in tourism?

Yeah, absolutely. The same as across any industry, when consumer demand changes, and demand for service increases it changes what people want and what people have on offer. So people don’t necessarily just want to come down and have dinner. They want to know who the chef is, they want to know if the produce is local, they want to know the story behind it. So the way we deliver product as an industry is changing. They want potentially farm gate experiences, they want to visit and see the cow that the milk came from. Ten years ago it was unheard of, so it’s very much changing the shape of who we are as an industry.

What opportunities does the region have to capitalise on?

We’ve always go opportunity in product development, and in the services. There’s a lot of opportunity for tours and customised experience for the visitors, which we don’t even have any operators in yet. There are some, but there could be more. Food and wine is a strong industry that I think most regions are starting to develop because it pushes visitation and seasonality at different times of the year. We love our locals and our characters, and local stories and connecting our visitors to the story behind the tourism experience in a content and a digital way is a huge opportunity.

In terms of a broader picture, how does tourism in the SE of NSW fit within Australia as a whole. Is it normal, or are we unique, what does that look like?

Each section has its own challenges, and honestly the proximity to Sydney and Canberra and Melbourne for those further down south really does paly a part in terms of what key audiences we get, and how we fit on that. It’s a broad region.

The fact that Destination NSW have put such an emphasis on the destination networks and working together and collaboration, I think we’re really well placed in making some real headway. 

I think we’re sitting pretty well, but there's always pockets that need help and there’s always pockets that are doing better than others.

The challenges for Shoalhaven are very different from the challenges for the Sapphire Coast, but that doesn’t mean we’re not working together. I think that’s really what a bit focus needs to be over the next few years is that we are stronger working together than we are apart, and at the end of the day, our competitiors are bali and thailand, and the norht coast and brisbane and the gold coast, and not eachotther.

What does the board do practically, how does that feed down to tourism operators on the ground?

Well I’m only quite new to the board myself, so I can probably tell you more about that in the next few months. But at the moment the board does quite a lot on a national level, and a big project they’ve just done some work on researching local government and an investment in tourism as an industry for local government. Which is helping local government get a seat at some tables which they haven’t had before. But they’ve just picked up a pretty big project round agri-tourism because they see the opportunity for development.

Really because they operate as representatives on a national level they can petition ministers, they can talk to the office of local government and potentially get things change at a high level. And it’s a higher level than I could ever do as one local government. Really, it comes back to that key message that with key outcomes and visions we are so much stronger working together for reginal tourism than we ever are working separately.

Is there anything else that people should know?

It’s a really exciting time for tourism, the industry’s changing more in the last five years and probably in the next five years than it has in the last thirty years, and with that change can sometimes be scary for long term operators, but it also provides amazing opportunity, and I think we need to grab that by the horns and keep an eye on what those young ones want to do and see because they’re the future.