National Parks consult with locals
about tourism issues
Wednesday February 8, 2012
Members of the Cobar Tourism Advisory Committee met last Wednesday night at the Cobar Bowling & Golf Club with NPWS tourism officers Patricia Wilkinson and Dinitee Haskard (second and third from right) to discuss local park tourism matters.
Staff from NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service’s (NPWS) tourism and recreation department met with members of the Tourism Advisory Committee in Cobar last week to find out what visitors to Cobar want when they visit our local national parks.
NPWS Tourism and Recreation Coordinator Patricia Wilkinson from Dubbo and Tourism and Recreation Officer Dinitee Haskard from Broken Hill spoke with six representatives of the Tourism Advisory Committee at a meeting at the Cobar Bowling & Golf Club on Wednesday night.
Ms Wilkinson explained that NPWS is currently undertaking a Visitation Strategy for Toorale and Gundabooka reserves (located near Bourke) and was seeking local input to assist with their future planning.
Cobar Shire’s tourism officer John Martin welcomed the opportunity to have an input at the meeting.
“The NSW National Parks & Wildlife over the last 20 years have acquired an enormous amount of land in Western NSW, but have provided almost no funds to promote the park to those people who visit Western NSW.
“I have raised this issue with the NPWS on numerous occasions with no success,” Mr Martin said.
“The National Parks are here and therefore should be seen as an asset to our tourism inventory.”
Last week’s meeting was part of a series of consultations NPWS staff have had with the public to hear their views.
“We are trying to get an idea of what the visitor profile to NPWS in the Cobar area is.
“We want to know who they are - older travellers or people with young families.
“And we want to know what they like to do in National Parks,” Ms Wilkinson said.
“We know people come to the area looking for ‘an experience’.
“We don’t want to create something that doesn’t have a demand.”
She said they will be looking at the potential of local parks; any issues with information about or access to parks and any opportunities to partner and link with local businesses to help promote the parks.
NPWS staff will also be looking to could find ways to better use the parks and also give visitors greater access.
Ms Haskard said she was pleased with the meeting which she found to be “both open and informative”.
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