BUSINESSMAN Peter Rogers will continue to push Bathurst Regional Council to better promote the city's tourist attractions, calling for more signs to draw attention to them.
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The call comes after council finally accepted the three fibreglass dinosaurs donated by benefactors of the Australian Fossil and Mineral Museum.
While waiting for the donations to be accepted, Mr Rogers took one of them on a trip to Mount Panorama.
He has also purchased another one, which he intends to call Dennis, and will be using it to help promote the city.
As for the donation, council's director of Cultural and Community Services, Alan Cattermole, explained that the delay in accepting the dinosaurs was due to paperwork.
"Council formally accepted the donation shortly after the presentation of the dinosaurs at the Australian Fossil and Mineral Museum, once the appropriate paper work had been completed and returned to council by the donor," he said.
"All gifts must have a paper trail for probity and due diligence, as per council's Gifts and Benefits Policy. Council must be able to show a clear and transparent process with regard to all gifts and donations."
Mr Cattermole said council is still looking at how best to utilise the dinosaurs, while keeping with the heritage building streetscape at the museum.
The reason behind the donation of the dinosaurs was to help attract people to the city's museums, which Mr Rogers has said are operating at a loss.
While the dinosaurs would help, he thinks increased signage would be a bigger and better step forward.
"All around the world, signs with brown backgrounds and white writing are used and known as tourist signs," Mr Rogers said.
"... Travelling tourists know about the brown signs and keep an eye out for them so they don't miss an attraction that is worth stopping for. A drive from Dubbo to Orange has the same signs alerting tourists of attractions that they may miss if not alerted by the signs.
"Come to Bathurst and the brown tourist signs are like diamonds - very hard to find."
He said that council has done a "great job" in creating museums and maintaining public parks, "but we need signage to get the tourists to turn off the highway and to have a look at what we as a city have to offer".
"In the times ahead, with all the empty shops, we need more than ever to promote our wonderful city," he said.
