Cockie Pics

Do visitor numbers seem to have risen — again — this year? A casual observation might conclude … and for the most part, our visitors are welcomed—except for the small rump who ‘hoon’ our streets, get off to the sound of their exhausts, drive like maniacs or illegally park, lazily litter, and disrespect the town. But how might we tell whether the numbers have risen?

Then, as I sat under the Banksia robur trees [aka. swamp banksia – https://tinyurl.com/uny8yz4t] outside Ipsos and Bottle of Milk—two of the many beautiful specimens of this Queensland native that line Mountjoy Parade courtesy of one of the better decisions of the Surf Coast Shire many years ago—and watched visitors endlessly snapping cockie pic after cockie pic [NB: take extra care with the spelling] … I began to wonder just how many cockie pics must beam out from Lorne on social media each year.

 

Starting with the following wild assumptions:
• locals prefer taking pics of sunsets and empty beaches and abhor photographing cockies
• cockie photographers are, by breed, exclusively visitors
• each cockie photographer takes an average of 3 cockie pics
• perhaps a third of our visitors get cockie-snap-happy

… then the annual cockie pic rate would be three times every one in three visitors. To satisfy my cockie-pic-curiosity, I turned to Google and entered the search string: “Annual Visitors Great Ocean Road” for the official visitor numbers.

1. The Strategic Business Plan of Great Ocean Road Regional Tourism (GORRT) 2019-2022 [https://tinyurl.com/vfavds24] states, “… the GOR receives more than 3 million domestic and 785,000 international day-tripper visitors annually”.

2. Vic Tourism [https://tinyurl.com/nb24tzmr] quotes: “… >2.8 million tourists visited the GOR between July 2018 and June 2019, of which 2.6 million were domestic visitors, and 251K came from international sources”.

3. Tourism Australia [https://tinyurl.com/2hz6h38e] quotes: “… the GOR welcomed over 2.8 million visitors between 2018 and 2019. This includes over 2.6 million domestic visitors and 250,000 international visitors”.

As GORRT, Vic Tourism and Tourism Australia all seemed to be broadly singing from the same hymn book with an annual pre-Covid visitor rate of [give or take] 3 million, this might seem a reasonable number to work with, right?

Seemingly not, for as I visited other ‘authoritative sites’ and began to find widely differing data, my initially ‘simple’ calculations became far more complicated and ‘rubbery’!

4. Courtesy of data supplied by Deloittes, a well-respected global auditor, the Marine and Coast Report [04/06/2020 – https://tinyurl.com/yc8a95x6] offers a wildly higher count: “… the GOR welcomed 7.4 million visitors in pre-Covid 2018-2019, spending a total of 8.0 million nights in the region. Of these, half were domestic day trippers … see Chart 1.1”.

 

As for the ubiquitous and unsolicited AI summary that now annoyingly accompanies every Google search …

5. The ‘AI summary’ [using the exact search phrase: “Annual Visitors Great Ocean Road”] seems to have chosen to side with the Marine and Coast report and states: “… in 2019, the GOR had 7.4 million visitors, including 4.5 million day-trippers and 8 million overnight visitors”… figures that don’t quite comput3!

This calls into question just how AI reaches the conclusions it so confidently displays and throws up the conundrum: who should I trust?

The Deloitte data are clearly from the pre-Covid period [2019] … yet there are orders of magnitude differences between the Tourism data [#2 and #3], the Deloitte report for Marine Parks [#4], the mid-range number quoted by GOR Regional Tourism [#1], and the AI figure [#5] which, for unstated reasons, chose the higher number, then further confounds the data.

Two additional visitor estimates appear in reports from 2023.

6. The Times News Group [publisher of the Surf Coast Times] [https://tinyurl.com/49z8km9h] offered an entirely different figure on 03/05/23 when it reported: “… the GOR had 5.54 million visitors”.

7. Meanwhile, our ‘very own’ GORCAPA Annual Report @ https://tinyurl.com/3z5y8w2t [06.10.23] has stated that: “… today the road carries >5 million visitors each year”.

Though [#6] and [#7] both roughly agree, neither states the year from which their data is derived, and both are quite different to the other data sources. One can only presume they are post-Covid numbers.

As for answering the pointless question … ‘how many cockie pics are taken each year?’… the number must range from 3 – 8 million [depending on the source data]. More importantly, the exercise uncovered the gross differences in the ‘official estimates’ for visitors to the GOR and Lorne.

Two questions arise:
1. When and from where was all this ‘data’ drawn?
2. How was it counted?

Two conclusions emerge:
3. ‘AI’ is unlikely to be a completely trustworthy source.
4. Whichever source is correct [if any is], it’s a lot of cockie pics!

What seemed to be a simple, fun exercise has—courtesy of some wildly differing visitor counts—led to the rather depressing conclusion that the organisations and bodies that oversee the tourism use of the GOR are producing/using numbers that wildly disagree with each other. That said, how can planning ever be sensibly approached?

Not one of the sources has stated how, from where, and what counting method has informed their numbers. Which body should local businesses consult, and whose numbers can they reasonably trust to inform their business decisions?

Though starting as a back-of-an-envelope statistical game around cockie photography, it seems to have revealed a rather serious management problem … we may have no real idea of whether a low ~3 million visitors or a high ~8 million visitors [using rounded figures] travel our road each year.

The Australian Government recently updated the methodology used to estimate metropolitan and regional visitor numbers at the National Visitor Survey website [https://tinyurl.com/4vrk7rnx]. It makes for interesting reading.

First, the survey methods have been constantly changing—almost year on year—thus, serial comparisons are fraught. Further, a heavy reliance on phone surveys, data corruption by scammers, advertisers and promotors/influencers, and the choice of significantly variable year-on-year sample sizes pose a significant threat to the validity of the databases. I am no statistician, but if the numerical weevils get to the data as quickly as our cockies get to our bins, one can only conclude that, just like the game our cockies play on bin night, the visitor number databases are ‘rubbish in, garbage out’ and are based mainly on guesswork.

 

As Graph 1 shows the distribution of the tourism dollars [by region] — a distribution that influences everything from road maintenance to accommodation and hospitality, perhaps estimating the number of cockie pics from beneath a Banksia robur in the main street of Lorne might be just as accurate as the methodology that is currently used to measure and fund tourism.

 

John Agar

Feature Writer

 

A word from the chairman

Hello

Just when we thought Lorne was sliding into its autumn/winter slumber, we were woken with a start to read an article (in that other paper!) last Sunday which announced, under the headline “GORCAPA boots Lorne Fishing Co-operative from home of over 70 years”, that the tenants of the historic Lorne Pier Co-op building have been given notice to leave by 31 May. The article claimed that the Lorne Angling and Aquatic Club have also been given their “marching orders”. My first move was to check the calendar; no it’s not April 1!
Things became clearer on Monday when the tenants received official notification and GORCAPA posted further information on their website. Rumours of the demise of the Aquatic Club are premature and its 3,403 members continue to wait for the reveal of the new clubhouse. It has been clarified that the impact on the Aquatic Club is the loss of storage (GORCAPA have agreed to provide alternative storage off-site). The Aquatic Clubhouse is not affected and will continue to operate as usual.
What is not clear and has not been explained is why this action is being taken now, when there are no plans for the future development of the site. There have been rumours that it is to allow the removal of asbestos, or that the building is to be demolished. The official GORCAPA announcement does not confirm nor dispel either of those rumours and only refers to “enabling essential early works”.
This is happening while the so-called Community Reference Group and the Lorne community wait patiently to see the Urban Design Framework which was promised to be revealed early this year. The UDF, when finalised, will allow building design to commence. Expected completion of the redevelopment is still June 2026. The clock is ticking!

*****

The football/netball season proper starts on Saturday April 5 at Birregurra. The footballers experienced a reality-check in their second practice match but, with a great bunch of new recruits as well as many returning premiership players, they are confident of a great start to the season. The LFNC has implemented the Member Jungle membership system which will be familiar to members of the Country Club and the Aquatic Club. Please join up to show your support for our local teams. There is a range of membership options and you can join at www.lornefnc.com.au/membership.
Don’t forget the community dinners are starting again from Wednesday April 2 from 6pm at Stribling Reserve Community Pavilion. They are a great opportunity to share some good food and company with Lorne locals and visitors.
I am sorry (not really) to be leaving you at such an interesting time, but I must away to a family celebration in Fiji. I look forward to hearing good news on our return. In the meantime I leave you in the capable hands of my Committee for Lorne colleagues.

Bula Vinaka

Lorne Ward Events Calendar

March

1-30 – Lorne Sculpture Biennale, on the Lorne foreshore. www.lornesculpture.com

29 – Lorne Country Club V Lorne Aquatic Club Golf Challenge, 10am for 11am start at LCC followed by BBQ. Everyone welcome.

30 – Deans Marsh Festival, Live music, local harvest, market stalls, dog jumping, kids events and much more. 10 am – 6pm at Deans Marsh Reserve.

April

17 – Photographic Exhibition Opening night, @ Lorne Community Connect Thursday 17 April 6 pm – 7.30 pm.             

18-28 – 2025 Photographic Exhibition Routine and Ritual. Info: lornecommunityconnect.com.au

19 – Lorne Market, 9-3pm www.lornemarkets.com/

20 – Lorne Aquatic & Angling Club – Major Fishing Competition No 3, Weigh cut off 12.30pm. Free roast lunch for competitors, $10 non-fishing members.

May

4 – LAAC Winter Comp No 1. lines down after 6am, weigh in at the Lorne Aquatic and Angling Club at 12:30 followed by BBQ lunch.