The management of Central Coast Tourism is set to undergo changes, starting with a report from staff, to be considered by the Administrator, Mr Ian Reynolds, at the next Central Coast A Council meeting on November 23.
Council has confi rmed the report will be placed in the public domain and not considered in a confi dential session. “All I’d say is that tourism, in aggregate, is one of the biggest industries on the Coast,” Mr Reynolds said. “It is pushing $1 billion a year into the economy of the Central Coast,” he said. “This region’s asset base, its forests and beaches, are a great attractor.” Central Coast Tourism has been a Regional Tourism Organisation that has enjoyed annual funding of around $500,000 from the former Gosford Council and around $500,000 from the Wyong Council.
However, its status has changed due to the NSW Government’s recent restructure of regional tourism throughout the state. Both former Councils had resolved to continue funding Central Coast Tourism up to June 2017 in preparation for the expected changes at state level. “The Central Coast is now part of Sydney Surrounds North, so how does the Central Coast position itself to access that new structure?”, Mr Reynolds said in relation to what the report to the November 23 Council meeting would cover. “The details of how the NSW Government will fund the new structure are still being sorted out, and beneath that structure, we need to ensure that attention is being paid to the Central Coast as a priority.
“The new structure has a range of different areas included under one banner and we want to make sure the Central Coast is getting its fair share.” Mr Reynolds said he presumed one option that might be canvassed in the staff report would be bringing the management of the region’s tourism into Council instead of having Council continue to fund an external Tourism entity. “There are various iterations of doing it outside or in house, but that depends on the other workloads of the Council and whether it can provide suffi cient high quality expert staff to get the job done,” he said.
Interview, Nov 8, 2016 Ian Reynolds, Central Coast Council administrator