Member for Bathurst Paul Toole has announced NSW Government funding of $35,000 to Bathurst Regional Council to create a marketing campaign to boost the local tourism and hospitality industry when COVID restrictions begin to ease.
Bathurst Regional Council will also kick in $35,000 towards the initiative.
Mr Toole said the funding is from the Destination NSW Tourism Industry Marketing Support Program.
“Bathurst Regional council will use the funding to create a marketing campaign which will be vital to support tourism and hospitality in the region to bounce back as quickly as possible when restrictions ease,” he said.
“The campaign aims to raise the profile of the Bathurst region as the number one destination for families in the Central West and I want to make sure we are in the best position to recover as quickly as possible.”
According to Dan Cove from the Bathurst Visitor Information Centre the campaign will generate business and drive bookings to key attractions and to accommodation in the city and villages.
“It will include public relations activity, digital marketing, consumer competitions and new content creation, amongst other activities,” he said.
“Planning is currently underway and the campaign will hopefully
run later this year.”
Mr Cove said the last 12 months has seen a huge rise in interest in the Bathurst region, particularly amongst the family markets.
He said the latest WOTIF.COM booking data at 21 June 2021 showed that Bathurst was the top trending NSW destination with accommodation interest up 970 per cent, based on interest from family travellers between 1 January 2021 and 6 June 2021.