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Central Coast Tourism - where to now? -- O'Neill Report: Central Coast leads in growth stakes -- Central Coast Tourism milestones

Central Coast Tourism - where to now?

Rumours abound concerning the future of Central Coast Tourism CEO, Horst Endrulat, following an apparent Boardroom clash in early July. There is no question that Mr Endrulat has left the organisation, but the circumstances remain clouded with the Chairman, Barton Lawler refusing to comment.

Feelings have been running high at Central Coast Tourism (CCT) since last year when the newly appointed General Manager of Crowne Plaza Terrigal was highly critical of the management of the organisation, culminating in the hotel cancelling its membership and going public with a front page story in the Central Coast Express Advocate. However, the Crowne Plaza story is only the tip of the iceberg, as Wyong Council has been a destabilising influence in the organisation for over ten years.

Both Gosford and Wyong Councils are entitled to seats on the Board of Directors due to their funding of CCT. What is not generally known though is that Gosford Council’s funding comes via a Business and Tourism Development Levy on all business ratepayers in the Gosford LGA, while Wyong Council’s contributions come from General Funds and have never matched those contributions from Gosford.

In fact the contributions from Wyong has, over the years, been little more than the cost of running the Visitor Information Office at The Entrance – which CCT has been obliged to operate as a condition of the funding. The organisation is said to have “financial problems” however Mr Endrulat had prepared new budgets showing how this could be overcome. Unfortunately for the region it isn’t all that simple.

To be a viable Regional Tourism Organisation under a new formula set down by the Department of Tourism earlier this year, CCT needs to maintain financial sponsorship by the two Councils as well as have financial input from the industry. For the past eighteen years this has been the case and the CCT model was an industry first, which has led the way for the Government to set up new funding arrangements. So far only two other regions have an operating model similar to CCT – the Blue Mountains and Mid North Coast.

Central Coast Business Review understands that only last month CCT received $640,000 – the first of three annual payments that would total $1.9 million specifically to market the region. The provision with the funding is that the industry has to equal that amount, and Mr Endrulat had established a strategy to achieve the outcome.

With Mr Endrulat gone however, this is all in jeopardy and the Central Coast tourism industry could miss out on an injection of almost $4 million for a marketing campaign over the next three years. Meanwhile, CCT now could be looking at paying out Mr Endrulat’s contract which has another six months to run, and possibly incur other legal costs.

O’Neill Report shows Central Coast leads in growth stakes

The O’Neill Review into Tourism in New South Wales, which came out in mid-2008, revealed a host of problems causing the State to lose its share of the tourism market.

It highlighted one area where radical change is needed and that is through “empowering and supporting strong tourism regions to take the dominant role in promoting themselves, in partnership with the State Government”.

The State Government took early action and set up a new organisation to assist regions to participate and immediately funded those that met the new criteria – the Central Coast, Blue Mountains and Mid-North Coast.

The Report highlighted that in the seven years to FY2007 the Central Coast grew at a faster rate than any other region including Sydney.

Trend Annual Rate of Growth – NSW Regions 1999-2000 to 2006-2007

Central Coast	1.8%
Sydney	1.4%
The Hunter	1.3%
Outback NSW	1.1%
New England/North West	1.0%
Riverina	0.6%
Illawarra	0.1%
North Coast	0.0%
Northern Rivers	-0.2%
Snowy Mountains	-1.0%
Explorer Country	-1.2%
Capital Country	-1.2%
The Murray	-1.2%
Blue Mountains	-2.6%
South Coast	-2.9%
Lord Howe Island	-7.0%

Source: Calculated from Tourism Research Australia data.

Central Coast Tourism milestones

Twenty years ago the Central Coast’s tourism industry was in free fall and it was the major players in the region who saw that a united and well-funded marketing organisation was desperately needed. And so they set up Central Coast Tourism. For the record, Central Coast Business Review publishes here some of the milestones in the organisation’s fifteen year history:

1994	Creation of first Regional Tourism Organisation (RTO) in NSW.
1995	First RTO to introduce commissionable sales in Visitor Information Centres.
1996	First RTO to establish in-house graphic design department for brochures and advertising.
1996	Established Events Department to develop and manage regional events.
1996	Established Conference and Convention unit to expand into conference and MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Events) market.
1998	Secured Federal Government grant to develop and implement a reservation and booking system.
1999	First online internet booking system introduced in regional Australia.
1999	Engaged the Central Coast in international marketing activities.
2000	Successful Olympic business secured for the Central Coast.
2000	Start of Conference and Convention management.
2000	Fourth time winner of Best RTO in NSW; and winner of RTO National Award.
2004	At request of Tourism NSW, began work on the Central Coast Gateway Centre, Kariong.
2006	CEO, Horst Endrulat, invited to serve on Board of NSW Tourism Industry Council – the peak tourism industry body in NSW.
2007	Gateway Centre opened with outstanding results in regards to visitation since then.
2004-08	CEO and Chairman worked to gain additional funding for regional tourism – resulted in O’Neill Report and adoption of CCT’s recommendations.
2009	$670,000 FORTO funding received for Central Coast from State Government for regional marketing – a first in NSW.

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