KIAMA Tourism claims to be bewildered by a council decision to move aspects of the municipality’s tourism management in-house, including appointing its own tourism manager.
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The council has been reviewing how it spends funding allocated to the organisation.
In 2013/2014, council provided Kiama Tourism with direct funding of $306,500.
At the August meeting, councillors were presented with a review of the council’s tourism spend, sparked by concerns regarding continuing problems the Kiama Tourism board appeared to be having.
Kiama Tourism chairman Brian Longbottom previously said the board supported a structured arrangement with appropriate levels of reporting between council and Kiama Tourism.
Under the new structure endorsed at Tuesday night’s meeting, while some funds would be redirected, overall council would spend more money on tourism.
Council would still allocate around $160,000 to Kiama Tourism, but $157,000 will be redirected to council’s new tourism manager and marketing, with council factoring in an additional $30,000 to $40,000 in administration and office costs.
The tourism manager will seek to market and promote the municipality.
Cr Gavin McClure, who had decided to resign as a director of the tourism board on Tuesday, primarily to contribute to the debate, expressed concerns.
Cr McClure wasn’t certain the tourism manager’s role was clear, and suggested the decision may cause angst between members, Kiama Tourism and perhaps council.
“Personally, and I think the opinion of the board is that there seems to be a lot of wasted discussion, energy and money that’s been spent on probably both sides… To try and come to something better,” he said.
‘‘My question is - are we achieving something better? “Engaging the services of a tourism manager is likely to cause splintering between the groups.
“Kiama Tourism will continue, albeit hamstrung with regards to funding.
‘‘I think there’s a lot of money being spent on the tourism manager, it’s $100,000, and effectively there’s actually no more money being spent on tourism in Kiama.”
Kiama Mayor Brian Petschler said councillors wanted to work with Kiama Tourism, and both parties needed to focus on what they are particularly good at.
‘‘We want to get an experienced qualified tourism manager to focus on the strategic arm, not be involved in legging it around town selling the visitors centre.”
Cr Andrew Sloan said “a lot of plans and things have changed over the last 20 years, which is why we needed to look at a new structure”.
“Our economic development strategy is largely about tourism… There’s no reason why we can’t work together very successfully.”
Mr Longbottom said he was disappointed with the outcome.
“As a board, we are finding it very difficult to understand why council would spend time and money to change the structure of one of the best-performing tourism organisations on the South Coast, by any operational or marketing metrics – including visitation, length of stay, local economy outcomes, and membership levels,” he said.
“We cannot understand how council can view their decision as investing more in externally marketing the Kiama LGA, when in actual fact they are now diverting more than half of the funding to staff resourcing within a local government setting.
“The Kiama Tourism Board maintains its stance that any moves to take tourism activities, including its strategic management and marketing activities, into the local government setting in Kiama, will fracture tourism to the detriment of the local economy and the tourists who visit our beautiful region.”
Mr Longbottom their focus would remain on bringing tourists to the region.
“Despite our disappointment at the outcome of last night’s council meeting, the Kiama Tourism Board is still looking for goodwill from future discussions with council.’’
Kiama Tourism’s annual general meeting will take place on Wednesday night.
