Ex-Sydneysider STUART PEARSON looks at Bathurst and its future from the perspective of a new resident.
RECENTLY, I heard about a new business initiative starting in Bathurst.
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I was so intrigued I contacted the owner and subsequently my wife and I had the privilege to literally "road test" the company's product before it was launched to the general public.
It is the hop-on, hop-off Bathurst Explorer bus run by proprietor Ian Redpath from Bathurst Tours. I was so impressed with Ian and his new service that I am penning this article as a full endorsement of this man's entrepreneurship.
These are the types of businesses that Bathurst needs if it wishes to continually grow and prosper.
But first, I must make the following declarations. I have no pecuniary interest in this man's business (wish I did, though) and we took the tour as full fee-paying customers.
Tourism is already an important industry to Bathurst and the Central West. In the future, it has the potential to become the equal or more of the other major industries in the region, namely education, health, mining, agriculture and forestry.
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Most capital cities in Australia have sightseeing bus tours of their cities; sometimes they are called an "Explorer" bus.
However, outside the state and federal capitals it is unusual to find similar bus tours for the tourist. In fact, in regional Australia, I can only find the Blue Mountains, Ballarat and Bendigo that have sightseeing bus tours. Each of these locations are within two hours of a capital city and are visited by millions of overseas and domestic tourists annually.
Bathurst may have a smaller population than any of the above-mentioned regional locations, yet its visitor numbers are already approaching the one million mark.
Further research from Destination NSW reveals that almost three million tourists visited the combined Central West and Orana regions last year (2018).
This number was a whopping increase of about 13 per cent on the year before (source: National and International Visitor Surveys, Y/E Sep 2018, Tourism Research Australia).
The research went on to reveal that most of the tourists are domestic, with almost 30 per cent coming across the mountains from Sydney.
They are primarily coming to the region on holidays and spend a staggering $1.5 billion purchasing food, beverages, accommodation, tours and gifts in the region.
The Central West and Orana region combined is now the fourth most important destination for tourism in NSW - after Sydney, the Hunter and the South Coast.
The downside to this data is that while Central NSW is visited by three million tourists annually, the Bathurst region captures less than a third of that number.
Here is a golden opportunity to expand the tourist industry in Bathurst and I believe Ian Redpath from Bathurst Tours is one such operator to make the most of that opportunity.
The timing of the launch of the Bathurst Explorer in the next few months may prove ideal.
There is a large and growing tourist market for visitors to the Central West and Bathurst is in a perfect position to capture a much larger share of that market.
In so doing, businesses like Ian Redpath's Bathurst Explorer should thrive and tourism in Bathurst will continue to drive economic growth for the area.
