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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, First Session (54-1)
2018-05-30 Daily Xml
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Ecotourism

Mr BASHAM (Finniss) (14:53): Thank you, Mr Speaker. My question is to the Minister for Environment and Water. Will the minister update the house on the government's support for ecotourism and the opportunities that this presents to promote active engagement with our natural environment?

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS (Black—Minister for Environment and Water) (14:53): I thank the member for Finniss for his question and recognise his advocacy for a topic which is of such importance to his own electorate, with sites such as the Murray Mouth, the surf beaches at Middleton and Basham Beach, through to Granite Island and the various conservation parks that extend along the Heysen Trail.

Ecotourism tourism and nature-based tourism is a critical part of his electorate, and it is an important industry in many of the electorates represented across our parliament, but particularly in regional areas. The value of nature-based tourism and heritage-based tourism—because the two can be linked very closely—should not be underestimated.

It was a great pleasure to be able to attend this morning the South Australian Tourism Industry Council breakfast with the member for Finniss and the Hon. Mr Ridgway, the Minister for Tourism, in the other place. It was great to be able to attend that breakfast and meet with over 150 tourism operators who have an increasing focus on nature-based and heritage-based tourism opportunities.

The previous government undertook a very good body of work—and we have to give credit where credit is due—in partnership with the industry and working through my department, looking at how nature-based tourism can be maximised in South Australia. We are blessed in South Australia with phenomenal natural assets, many of those under the stewardship of the environment department and the ministry I hold. Those natural assets can be such a drawcard for local, interstate and international tourists to visit our state. To capitalise on the natural assets we have is therefore a very important part of our government's economic growth agenda. We know that we are focused very much on growing exports, and one of those exports is actually exporting the idea of coming to Australia and South Australia and the idea of what can be enjoyed here.

So there is a great body of work to be undertaken, as I said, in partnership with the private sector to identify opportunities in our natural landscape as to how those areas can be enjoyed. My department has been working since the previous government—and we have ramped that work up now—to identify places which can be activated, whether those are heritage buildings or conservation and national parks that could lend themselves to accommodation opportunities.

We know that our state requires more high-end accommodation in our regions. We know that when people spend extra nights in our regions they spend more money, and the visitor economy is maximised when people spend a night or two nights or more than that in a particular region. So high-end accommodation is important. We are going through a process of identifying sites where that can be developed in a sensitive way.

The balance between conservation and economic development has to be struck very carefully, and that is something I have been talking extensively with my department about—how we get that balance effectively coordinated. I look forward to updating the member for Finniss and members of this house on the real opportunities we have to reinvigorate our tourist economy as a result of opportunities around nature-based and heritage-based tourism and particularly it happening in the assets my department has stewardship of.

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