The Destination Riverina Murray (DRM) board, whose responsibility is tourism across the Riverina-Murray region, recently met with the Griffith City Council to discuss the tourism opportunities.

The Area News headed out to the Griffith Visitor Information Centre this morning to meet with the DRM board of directors and staff and a delighted Mirella Guidolin – the Visitor Information Centre Coordinator – to find out what’s in store for Griffith.

Chairperson of the DRM, Genevieve Fleming, explained the purpose of the meeting and what opportunities may be explored.

“We had a meeting with Griffith City Council yesterday – that included the mayor, general manager, senior staff, and the tourism team – and then we went out to the site and had a look at Lake Wyangan to see what the opportunities are out there,” Ms Fleming said.

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“Today, we’re having a quick look at the Visitors’ Centre, and then we’re going out to the Piccolo Farm to have a look; see what their plans are for more events.”

The DRM is looking to map out what the opportunities are across all the regions.

“We have just spent six or seven months developing the Destination Management Plan, so, all the destination networks throughout NSW have put together destination management plans.”

Ms Fleming said that in order to do the Destination Management Plan, they held over 20 meetings with hundreds of stakeholders from local government and tourism operators.

“The plan has quite a comprehensive overview of the whole area, such as Darlington Point – in terms of boat ramps and better facilities to make it more accessible and appealing for visitors,” she said.

When asked what their findings were, what kind of opportunities lay in wait for Griffith, Ms Fleming responded:

“Yesterday, we met with Council to work out their priorities, and something we’re certainly really focused on is enhancing the visitor experience from the point of view of being able to enjoy the food and wine.

“It’s such a successful area in terms of producing the wine, but we think there’s room to enhance the visitor experience to come and taste the wine.”

The DRM has also noted the lack of accommodation options as another area to explore.

“It seems to be a priority to develop some more accommodation offerings, because the hotels are very full, and there’s opportunities for Lake Wyangan to do a resort down there,” Ms Fleming said.

“We’d like to see more investment in accommodation – obviously if you want to bring more people to the region, they need somewhere to stay.”

Ms Fleming mentioned the new flights to Melbourne as an opportunity for the region to take advantage.

“People here are excited about having better access to Melbourne but obviously it works the other way as well.

“People in Melbourne will be able to experience a great offering here, because we hear of so many fantastic festivals and lunches, and the approach to hospitality here is so rich.

“You see a lot of people in urban areas who go overseas to have that sort of experience,” she said.

Ms Fleming said when the visitors come “it’s great for them to be able to go to a fantastic event, and we know the area’s very good at that but they need somewhere to stay and they also need better access to other facilities.

“It’s going to be a fair bit of work, but it’s a very exciting area I think, and the opportunities are huge.”

And, when asked about wine tourism specifically, General Manager of the DRM, Richie Robinson responded that it was “definitely” something they want to explore.

“One of the priority projects within the plan that we believe would be a game changer is to centralise that food and wine offering for the city, and bring some of those major wineries into a centralised place,” Mr Robinson said.

And, the DRM is currently looking at potential ideas for a ‘visitors’ hub’.

“We discussed with Council yesterday what some of the sites could be for that, how the operating models would look, and what the experience would be for people coming in,” Mr Robinson said.

“It could be quite grand and significant for the city to have somewhere that – as you’re coming into the city – you directly go to this one place to learn all about all the producers, winery, food, and whatnot.

“And, then you could potentially go out and pick and choose which ones you go out to onsite; have a look and a real experience.”

Shireen Donaldson, the Director for Tourism at Griffith City Council, along with Paige Campbell, Marketing and Promotion Griffith City Council – who has been working extensively with the DRM – are said to both welcome the changes.

“They’re very excited, especially because we’d like to see some more funding go to support some of the local events, and that’s something that Destination NSW, through the Minister’s office, is able to facilitate,” Ms Fleming said.

“We’ve got money available for product development, so that’s another thing that we’re working on.

“Altina Wildlife Park is keen to do some works out there to enhance their visitors’ experience, so we’d love to get them some funding to do that.

“There’s money for product development, there’s money for new events, there’s money for existing events.”

“The Minister for Tourism is from Gunnedah, originally – he was on council there and he was the mayor there – and it’s really nice to have someone in Sydney who understands what regional living is about,” Ms Fleming said.

“He is very committed to getting the focus off Sydney and dispersing all those tourists.”

“We’re very committed and keen to work with Griffith as a city,” Mr Robinson said.

“In our region there are three main cities (Albury, Wagga Wagga, and Griffith) and we’re really keen to make sure we work as closely as possible with those three – for obvious reasons such as access in from airports, major roads, and accommodation as well.”

We also chatted with board member of the DRM, Neil Druce, who spoke about the development of the city’s tourism.

“We’re looking to bring together the Murray and Riverina regions and, through Destination NSW, have a method to run tourism – to have people in the area, instead of in Sydney – and make things happen,” Mr Druce said.

“The important message is to any operators out there who are not connected to what we’re doing to get in touch with us,” Ms Fleming said.

“We do a stakeholder update every month; we’ve got the Tourism Awards coming up and we’re hopeful there’ll be some winners from this region – there are some strong applications,” she said.

Any of those operators who are not connected, can send an email to the DRM to get involved.

Ms Fleming also noted that the DRM will be looking for a new board member.

“The board was appointed 18 months ago by the minister, and one of our board members has had to resign – we feel we’ve got good representation in Wagga, Albury and Wodonga, Junee, Corowa, but we don’t have any representation in Griffith.

“We strongly encourage people from the Griffith region to apply.”