The Wonga Wetlands were established to manage local waste water, but the regular water supply has created a nature-based tourism attraction featuring diverse birdlife. The client wanted the attraction to be reinvigorated to have the potential to attract significant overnight visitors to Albury (and a subsequent economic benefit). We conducted an extensive analysis of the … Read more
As a tourism destination, the Solomon Islands only receives a small number of visitors and has them spread out over a vast archipelago. Australian tourism consultants were appointed to develop a Tourism Product Development Strategy. The team consisted of a tourism product development specialist, marketing specialist, infrastructure specialist, consultation specialist and a quantity surveyor. An … Read more
Supporting a marketing review for the Solomon Islands, we reviewed the digital marketing being done by Vanuatu, Samoa and New Caledonia. We undertook a comparative analysis of: a Google image search against the images used by each countries destination website;an analysis of the representation of the destination website images against the destination brand essence and … Read more
The Hume and Hovell Track (the Track), which stretches 426km between Yass and Albury in New South Wales, Australia. SMA Tourism prepared a Strategic Plan to address the ‘big picture’ of what the Track should be and what is needed to achieve this. This Strategic Plan proposed to transform the Hume and Hovell Track: The … Read more
The township of Forrest (Victoria) has a strong emergence of mountain biking. However, the trail network is unplanned and impossible to market. We began with a major piece of benchmarking to identify successful mountain biking trails in Australia and successful international destinations. We distilled key success factors and applied them to the Forrest trail network. … Read more
Organisations have plans to manage what they want to do. However, a plan is written in one moment of time. The more time passes, the more chance that a plan can become out of date. Models are designed not to go out of date. A model is like a living, constantly adapting plan. We are … Read more
SMA Tourism produced a Tourism Development Plan for Townsville City and the Townsville region. The region incorporates Burdekin to the south, Charters Towers to the west, Magnetic Island to the east and Hinchinbrook to the north. Our work included: review of current target markets versus current visitor data; review of current brand versus current marketing; … Read more
Historic Walhalla was once one of Australia’s richest towns and home to over 4,000 gold seekers. Now ‘frozen in time’ Walhalla is home to only 20 residents. The current gold mine tour provides a very masculine and factual experience based on the physical operation of the mine. Contemporary visitors want the ‘big picture and its … Read more
The East Arnhem Land region is situated in the far north-eastern corner of the Northern Territory, covers an area of 34,000km2 and has a population of 9,120 people – mostly Yolngu people, the traditional owners of the region. East Arnhem Land is made up of more than 50 Indigenous communities including. Commercial enterprises such as … Read more
Collie is a township in Western Australia whose economy is largely tied to coal mining and coal-based power generation. The demand for coal fired energy in Western Australia is diminishing, due to a surplus of power and moves away from high carbon to low carbon generating sources. To avoid a long-term decline in business confidence … Read more
This ground breaking project extended the Limits of Acceptable Change (LAC) model to a more tourism friendly monitoring and adaptive management system called TOMM (Tourism Optimisation Management Model). TOMM operates at a regional level – across Kangaroo Island in South Australia, best known for its seal interaction. We developed the model through extensive consultation, then … Read more
The Tasmanian government asks us to identify product development and investment opportunities that could drive visitor demand to Far North West Tasmania. And specifically increase first-time and repeat visitation to the target region; increase the average length of stay; increase visitor expenditure; increase visitor dispersal (geographically and seasonally); increase visitor satisfaction, and consequently, increase the … Read more
The Riverland region is not Australia’s largest wine producing region synonymous with Australia’s largest river, the Murray, and the verge that the Murray creates. This verge features almost linear adjacent strips of river generated wetlands, followed by viticulture and agriculture, followed by mulga and low dry woodlands. We developed ‘Riverland on the Verge’ as a … Read more
Jane joined SMA Tourism in 2015 as the food, wine, hospitality, health and wellness tourism expert, and is based in Newcastle, Australia. Jane has 20 years’ experience in tourism and hospitality business development, operations and marketing – developed through operating her own café, catering and food production business. She blends lateral thinking, creative concepts and … Read more
Jesse started working with SMA Tourism as an Associate in 2019, including a Feasibility Study for the former Wellington Gaol and Police Station in western New South Wales, Australia. Jesse is a registered Architect with more than 14 years of professional experience in local, national, and international projects. This work has been undertaken across the … Read more
Karl joined SMA Tourism in 2014 to lead tourism market analysis, economic impact assessment and policy design, and he is based in Melbourne, Australia. Karl has 25 years’ experience as a tourism industry specialist working as a Tourism & Aviation Economist and acting Director Strategy and Research for Tourism Australia, General Manager Policy and Research … Read more
Maudie joined SMA Tourism in 2017 to prepare a feasibility study and business case for a new art gallery in Shepparton, Victoria, and is based in Melbourne, Australia. Maudie has since operated as the SMA Tourism expert in similar gallery projects across Australia. Maudie is an expert in the field of Australian modern art and … Read more
Max joined SMA Tourism in 1997 to redevelop the former North Head Quarantine Station into a boutique cultural tourism attraction, and is based in Sydney, Australia. Max has over 40 years experience in the building industry, hospitality education and hotel business management. Working with construction companies such as K.B. Hutcherson and Condux, he developed project concepts, feasibility studies, … Read more
Sarah is an experienced and results-focused strategic leader. She is known for helping businesses and communities to innovate and grow. Her strong commercial understanding, strategic thinking, global brand management experience and ability to harness consumer insights for growth means that she can help any client improve business performance. With over 20 years in the food, … Read more
Suzanne joined SMA Tourism in 1997 to redevelop the former North Head Quarantine Station into a boutique cultural tourism attraction, and is based in Sydney, Australia. Suzanne brings strong expertise in legal drafting and negotiation, documentation project management – particularly with respect to property management. Suzanne has in-depth knowledge of all aspects of property law including … Read more