Adelaide’s daily and weekly newspapers are currently running a concerted and very worthwhile campaign, Shop in SA, to promote the benefits of SA residents shopping locally.
Of even more potential economic benefit is the need to convince SA residents to spend their holiday dollars in SA – to be a tourist in their home state.
Deciding to put our money where our mouth is, Lesley and I recently took a mini-break and headed off to the Yorke Peninsula. Specifically, we chose a two night deal at the Wallaroo Marina Apartments, and as will come as no surprise to those who know us, a game of golf at the nearby Greg Norman designed course at Port Hughes.
The most obvious benefits of this decision are the savings in time and travel costs relative to any holiday destination outside of SA. An easy and inexpensive two-hour drive meant I could finish an assignment the morning we left. Once we hit Port Wakefield Road, 15 minutes after we left home, we felt like we were on holidays. No long airport queues and security checks, no transit delays and connecting flight issues, no language or currency exchange hassles.
The Wallaroo Marina Apartments were a pleasant surprise – very spacious, comfortable, and a small percentage of the cost of any similarly situated waterfront accommodation on the eastern seaboard. An added attraction was the Coopers Alehouse which is part of the same development, and was our choice for dinner on the first night, and we went back night two. Nothing beats locking the vehicle at the end of the day and taking a 15 meter walk to dinner.
Enjoying very pleasant pre-dinner drinks and a great value meal, watching the sun set over the sea, while dolphins frolic just 30 or 40 meters away, was worth travelling to the other side of the country, or the world, but that proved to be totally unnecessary.
The motivation for writing this was the consistent assumption by the locals of the Yorke Peninsula that we were tourists from further afield than Adelaide. The same thing happened on Kangaroo Island, and up in the Flinders, when you answer the inevitable question “Where are you folks from?” by declaring we’re from Adelaide. The reaction is one of surprise, as if that is an unusual occurrence – and unfortunately it is.
During 2012, 1Call Holiday Arrangements have been entrusted with more than 100 assignments while our Clients have enjoyed their time away from home. Of those 100+ assignments, in only 3 or 4 cases have our Clients holidayed within SA.
Perhaps part of the problem is our travel industry makes its money sending their clients around the world, or cruising out of Australian waters. No SA resident needs a travel agent to organise their holiday within SA. The problem isn’t the attraction of our holiday destinations – tourists travel from the other side of the world to see them!
Surely the marketing people at Tourism SA understand their primary target market to sell the benefits of holidaying in SA are the residents of SA. Unfortunately the allocation of personnel and their marketing spend to SA based media clearly indicate otherwise.
All readers’ thoughts on how SA residents can be convinced to holiday locally will be welcome, and will form part of the submission I intend to put to SA’s tourism authorities.