Towards Better Tourism Outcomes for Central Otago

29 September 2014 

The strategy 'Towards Better Tourism Outcomes for Central Otago 2014-19' has now been finalised. This is the second tourism strategy for the region and was created as most of the actions in the previous Tourism Strategy 2007-2013 have been completed or investigated.

Developing the 2014 strategy involved widespread community consultation including community focus groups held with different tourism sectors (wine, accommodation, food, heritage, conference and meetings, events, cycling and activities) and survey responses from tourism operators and inbound operators.

Five key themes emerged from this consultation. These are:

1. Sharing information between operators and throughout the region
2. Promoting and packaging Central Otago experiences
3. Utilising Queenstown as a gateway to our region
4. Tourism operators consistently providing quality service and delivery standards
5. Central Otago providing a suite of quality visitor experiences by building on existing experiences and developing new ones.

There are many recommendations within the strategy. Those with the highest priority include developing touring routes that link Dunedin and Queenstown, developing marketing initiatives with Queenstown on projects that provide mutual gain, and ensuring visitor information (maps, signage, brochures. etc) is compatible with current technologies (including mobile phones).

A key topic during the draft strategy consultation process was who will take responsibility for the management of the strategy. 'Towards Better Tourism Outcomes for Central Otago 2014-2019' is a community owned strategy. It will be managed by a Tourism Working Group who will co-ordinate the implementation of the recommendations. Tourism Central Otago will provide support and facilitation.

"Now that the strategy has been finalised we are looking forward to putting it into action," said Stephen Jeffery, Chair of the Central Otago Tourism Working Group. "There are some great projects that will come from this strategy and we encourage anyone who is interested to get involved."

The success of the strategy's implementation was reliant on community groups, operators, service providers, and businesses working together collaboratively to achieve the recommendations, said Mr Jeffery.

Copies of the final strategy are available from Council service centres and libraries, or it can be downloaded here