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House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2013-10-29 Daily Xml
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ADELAIDE, LONELY PLANET RECOGNITION

Ms BETTISON (Ramsay) (15:04): My question is to the Minister for Tourism. Can the minister inform the house about the recent announcement by Lonely Planet recognising Adelaide as a top 10 city to travel to in 2014?

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL (Mawson—Minister for Tourism, Minister for Recreation and Sport) (15:04): This is terrific news today, with Lonely Planet, the world's leading travel guidebook, announcing that Adelaide is one of the top 10 cities to visit in 2014. It will give Adelaide and South Australia a wonderful hook to put out there to people around Australia and around the world to ensure that they come down here.

It was interesting to talk with Chris Zeiher. He is originally from Adelaide and he works with Lonely Planet. He put Adelaide on the long list and then fought hard for it to be there on the short list when these 10 cities from around the world were named today. We are up there with Paris, Zurich, Shanghai and other great cities in the world. It is a tremendous reward for a lot of hard work that has gone in by the private sector and the government in recent years.

We hosted a party for the public today between 11 and 2 up in Leigh Street, because it is Leigh Street that symbolises a lot of the changes that have happened over the past few years. Credit needs to go to the Deputy Premier, the man known in that part of the world as the Lion of Leigh Street, the Prince of Peel Street. He has done a great job in changing legislation, changing the way people think and allowing young entrepreneurial South Australians to set up business, to provide South Australians and visitors to South Australia with fantastic entertainment areas.

Of course, the Lonely Planet also mentioned that the Adelaide Oval, which will be ready for the test match in just a few weeks time and officially opened just before the start of the AFL season next March, will be a game changer for South Australia. It is something that we have recognised, and we have been working hard on getting the AFL to make sure that they bring their corporates and their fans over to South Australia next year for the games. Lonely Planet points out that it is going to create vibrancy around the city, which fits in beautifully with the vibrant city vision of our Premier.

As I said, these accolades do not come around by accident. Change does not come around on its own. It needs good people to drive change. This is where the government has worked with the private sector to really encourage that sort of change, to make us stand out from the crowd. We might not have a bridge, but Lonely Planet said what we do have are the sorts of things that people want to come and see when they travel throughout the world. The laneway bars, the new oval—they are the sort of X factors and things that people are looking for. I would encourage every South Australian—we have got the hook now. We have been named as one of the top 10 destinations in the world for next year. Let's all get out and sell that.

The SPEAKER: A supplementary from the member for Davenport.

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