- Latest News
FRESH PERSPECTIVE: UniSA student Jasmine Belford with Council's Visitor Operations Coordinator Teresa Coles. Picture: Whyalla News
Whyalla has a huge opportunity to tap into the lucrative conference market.
That was the message from the Whyalla Tourism Focus Group following a presentation to Council at an informal meeting this week.
Focus group executive team members Barbara Derham (chairperson) and Michael Creshull gave a detailed outline of a study prepared by UniSA student Jasmine Belford who spent time in Whyalla as part of an internship with the focus group.
In her report, Jasmine analysed the current conference market in Australia to determine if Whyalla had the capabilities to become a future host city for conferences. This included understanding what facilities are available, what would be needed in Whyalla to become a viable host and how would this be achieved.
“We need to turn that positive news into the message that we’re also open for business in these sort of growth industries like business tourism.” Barbara Derham
Barbara said the report identified that Whyalla has the capability to host significant conferences. What was needed to further Whyalla as a conference destination central co-ordination and a consistent marketing and promotional approach.
“We have hosted some marvellous conferences in Whyalla from the significant Global Maintenance Upper Spencer Gulf expo to more recently a group of 30 Council representatives for a Local Government Association board meeting,” Barbara said.
“To host these sort of events, Jasmine’s report identifies no less than 19 functions rooms available in Whyalla, two major conference venues, 24 accommodation providers with 752 beds.
“This is a solid base of facilities to host small and large conferences … we now need to tell the world about it and put a co-ordinating system in place.”
The reported also highlighted the significant projects happening in Whyalla as a further boost to the city’s attractiveness as a conference destination including the recent GigCity high-speed internet service announcement.
“We are about to become a GigCity, we’ve got a new jetty about to be built, a $100m high school confirmed, an upgrade to Bennett Oval and many more projects and investments in the pipeline … Whyalla is on the map statewide and nationally for all the right reasons,” Barbara said.
“We need to turn that positive news into the message that we’re also open for business in these sort of growth industries like business tourism.”
Barbara said the focus group would now look to work with Council, government agencies, Whyalla businesses and the community to further establish Whyalla as a conference city.