Over many years, there have been many operational issues and constraints with the Tidbinbilla Visitor Centre in the Australian Capital Territory. Some of the issues include poor accessibility, poor building performance and outdated interpretation.
The first aim of this project was to prepare an over-arching functional review of the Tidbinbilla Visitor Centre, integrating the findings of all the past reports, and conducting specialised research and consultation to fill out other missing dimensions relating to the functionality of the centre in relation to stakeholder expectations and trends in visitor centres.
Building on this functional review, we then proposed the future purpose of a visitor centre at Tidbinbilla, and then some options to consider – doing nothing, upgrading the existing building, or building a new facility on a more advantageous site. We then developed a feasibility assessment for two shortlisted options to test their strengths and limitations and make a recommendation on which option to proceed with. Our recommendation was to proceed with a new building at a new superior site within the Reserve, and if needed, prepare a business case for this. The ACT government is now working on sourcing funding to implement our recommendation, and the situation looks positive.
Throughout the project we consulted with local Aboriginal people (Ngunnawal) and a wide range of visitor economy, education and reserve management stakeholders.