Tourism operators kick off autumn

GEELONG’s tourism operators have welcomed back not only a return to events and more normal trading conditions but also a new chief executive officer for the industry’s peak body.

Tourism Greater Geelong and Bellarine (TGGB) hosted the “Let’s Kick Off Autumn” function at the just-opened cellar door at Austin’s Wines in Sutherlands Creek.

The March 1 event was also the final function for inaugural TGGB chair John Stevens, who announced last month he was stepping down from the role; and the first for the board’s new chair Bill Mithen.

Speaking to the crowd, Mr Stevens said the past two years had been incredibly challenging for businesses.

“When I looked at the numbers at the start of 2020, we’d had seven point two plus million visitors a year. It’s fair to say that’s not where it’s at right now.

“And I sit there as chair and I look at those big numbers and I have to keep reminding myself that that metric, as important as it is, really means that business like yours are contributing to that, so there’s plenty of work to be done.

“But what I’m confident about is that when the when the cork is out of the bottle, I think most of us have experienced that people want to get here and spend and spend time in our great region, and we’ve seen the first of that and we just want to see that become ongoing.”

Mr Mithen congratulated Mr Stevens for all his efforts since 2013.

“I’m really looking forward to trying to help out and grow the industry and therefore grow the region as much as we can, but it’s an incredible legacy that John has left,” Mr Mithen said.

“I reckon there are people around Geelong in the region that go about their business maybe without the fanfare and all the carry-on, but are absolutely critically important to the region and to the success of the region, and I think John is definitely one of those people.”

TGGB chief executive officer Brett Ince said one of TGGB’s projects at the moment was targeting the visiting friends and relatives domestic Melbourne market as well as the interstate market.

“A lot of that is linking us through to periods of time that bring us up to Easter and post-Easter through to that winter period where we do historically see a bit of a change in visitation.

“In saying that, when we look at the past few weeks, there’s a significant amount of events that are driving visitation to our region: the family events, the weddings, the pent-up demand in that space.

“This weekend – to have the Foo Fighters, Midnight Oil on Saturday night out at A Day on the Green, Nitro Circus on the Monday, the Geelong Revival throughout the weekend – it’s astounding, and we’ve got a significant amount of music events coming.”