SMA Tourism produced the 2023-2030 Destination Management Plan for the NSW Riverina Murray region. This document set a priority to develop and implement an Agritourism, Produce, Food and Drink Product & Experience Development Strategy. SMA Tourism were again engaged to develop this Agritourism Strategy to provide the directions needed to grow a differentiated and competitive … Read more
We researched 12 Aboriginal Interpretation Centres across Australia to explore what they offered, and what their competitive strengths and apparent limitations were. The research found a chequered history of success – not attracting many visitors, being expected to cover their own costs and struggling to do so. Many Centres have demonstrated poor historic performance in … Read more
The country of Anguilla in the Caribbean positions itself on four brand values of beaches, romance, food and people. However, there is a lack of experiences supporting the people dimension. The Ministry of Tourism in the country of Anguilla (Caribbean) asked us to assist develop and market five Heritage centres covering: Archaeology, Maritime, Plantations, Salt … Read more
Monkey Mia, within the Shark Bay World Heritage Area, Western Australia, is an ecotourism attraction where each morning a pod of dolphins swim into shore, to mix with wading visitors and gently take fish on offer. This project undertook visitor research identify unmet needs and experiential gaps in the attraction. We also identified target markets … Read more
Cultural tourism allows travellers to be immersed in local rituals and routines, taking away not only pretty photos but also shared memories of unique experiences. Cultural tourism encourages local communities to embrace their culture and boosts economic growth. Developing culturally geared tourism programs encourages destinations to celebrate and promote what distinguishes their communities, and in … Read more
The planning process for this Destination Management Plan integrated both demand (the visitor or consumer needs) and supply (the product or experience). While the geographic area that this Plan focuses on is the Local Government Area of Albury, it also proposed a number of cooperative initiatives with the City of Wodonga, given its close proximity … Read more
Our process started with a review of the Docklands visitor economy operating environment, documented as a Situation Analysis Report. This revealed major inconsistencies in branding. and strategic issues with the current visitor product / experience offer: Not enough to drive Docklands as a destination, and less than most consumers expect Insufficient capitalising on the waterfront … Read more
Despite being just an hour’s drive west of Melbourne, Moorabool had low market awareness and was an immature destination. We conducted a brand compatibility match to the events, to determine which ones were helping build brand strength, and an event calendar that contrasted industry demand for stimulus with the supply of events, and colour coded … Read more
The Riverina Murray visitor economy region in NSW encompasses 149,000 square kilometres, the third longest navigable river in the world, 16 National Parks, two RAMSAR listed wetlands, one World Heritage Listed area 22 local government areas and is home to over 275,000 people. The purpose of preparing this DMP was to ensure the visitor economy … Read more
We prepared a Destination Management Plan for the Wellington Shire, NSW. This included: An analysis of the regional visitor market. An analysis of the regional tourism product. An analysis of regional events. An analysis of regional tourism brand and marketing. The brand analysis involved a competitor analysis that included Parkes, Dubbo, Mudgee and Wellington, then … Read more
As part of a situation analysis, we undertook an audit of destinations, ecotourism and cultural tourism products across Uganda. Our product audit involved: A detailed description of the existing experience Justification notes supporting the scores from the course assessment Issues associated with holding back the success of the product Outline of opportunities to significantly improve … Read more
The Novotel and Ibis Sydney Olympic Park is located 25 minutes drive from the centre of Sydney Australia, within the heart of Sydney Olympic Park precinct, where the 2000 Olympics were held. The hotel’s target markets are business travelers, conferences and events. The hotel is managed by ACCOR. The property offers 144 4 star guest … Read more
Noah’s on the Beach is a successful 91 room hotel on the edge of Newcastle Beach. The property has a strong conference business, and is a popular function and restaurant venue for locals. We consulted widely with staff, then undertook a detailed analysis of the product strength, current corporate market, third party website profiling of … Read more
Working with Conrad Gargett and GML Heritage, we developed a Site Master Plan for the Kingston and Arthurs Vale World Heritage Site on Norfolk Island, two hours flight time north east of Brisbane, Australia. The site is one of Australia’s most significant former convict sites. Our work included:
Peak Hill is the northern gateway to the Parkes Shire and the second largest town in the municipality, situated on the Newell Highway approximately 48km north of Parkes. Peak Hill is a historic village, first settled in the 1840s as a grazing area, and in the 1890s growing rapidly with the discovery of gold, with … Read more
SMA Tourism is currently working with TKD Architects and Context Landscape Architecture to develop a Master Plan for South Head within the Sydney Harbour National Park, NSW. Our contribution to this project has included
Working with the Tourism Northern Territory, Tourism Central Australia, Northern Territory Heritage Commission, Office of Aboriginal Affairs and Central Land Council, we: undertook extensive consultation with local Aboriginal people; conducted product audits and determined product gaps; developed draft product development strategies and concepts for major product proposals; developed a Masterplan for the region; priced the … Read more
We developed a nature tourism strategy for the Canberra region. The process to developing this strategy included: analysis of market data (qualitative and quantitative) to determine growth segment opportunities for product development / reinvigoration and marketing stimulus; stakeholder consultation, including an online survey testing the potential to stimulate the VFR sector; an extensive product audit … Read more
In Nariño, nature tourism offers enormous potential to create employment and help achieve national development goals for poverty alleviation, economic growth and the conservation of the department’s unique natural and cultural resources wealth. The Nariño nature tourism offer is relatively passive (based on looking rather than doing) and there is a lack of experiences. However, … Read more
USAid engaged Colombian based CREATA and SMA Tourism to assess the feasibility of major investment in nature based tourism in former conflict regions of Colombia. To achieve this we undertook: an analysis of the tourism and nature tourism market pre and during the COVID-19 pandemic; separate primary market research into international and domestic markets, and … 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
Simon facilitated a one-day workshop with 50 Maldives tourism stakeholders. He first provided a presentation on the likely impact of climate change on tourism in the Maldives, and potential solutions to mitigate against the impacts. Simon then facilitated smaller groups to further develop the solutions so that they reflected the local situation, including available resources … Read more
Complete Title: Sustainable tourism management in the transboundary areas of the Dinaric Arc region: manual for planning, development and monitoring of tourism in the protected areas of the Dinaric Arc. Publication page
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
The Bazaruto Archipelago National Park (BANP) was created to protect dugong and marine turtles, and their habitats. The islands’ flora and fauna, coral reefs and marine birds were also included in the Park. The archipelago has about 5,000 residents in seven communities. Resources may not be sufficient to maintain the population, leading to decreased catches … Read more
Exuma Cays, in the Bahamas, is an archipeligo of mostly uninhabited 120 limestone cays. The Exumas have two major cays with communities living on them, and another 12 cays with resorts on them. The region is regarded as one of the most natural areas in the Bahamas, and about half of the area is a … 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
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 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
Anne joined SMA Tourism in 2015 to undertake iconic tourism product development and is based in Uganda. She has a solid understanding of Uganda’s tourism industry and sound knowledge and familiarity of Uganda’s existing and potential tourism attractions and activities. She has a vast network of Ugandan tourism stakeholders, solid skills in public, private sector … Read more