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 doing so, provides the opportunity for authentic cultural exchange between locals and visitors.
The purpose of this Strategy was to draw on existing strategies and identify new opportunities to grow cultural tourism in Wollongong, bring cultural tourism into cultural planning, and bring the leading cultural experiences closer into destination management.
The Strategy was developing using a three phased approach:
- Situation Analysis
Consultation with 23 stakeholders, visitor research 125 visitor interviews at multiple cultural tourism attractions, audit of 28 cultural tourism products, analysis of 54 cultural events, cultural café and restaurant analysis, cultural accommodation analysis - Ideas generation
Vision, cultural tourism brand, target market, draft strategies, research comparable approaches to the draft key strategies, to make them more competitive and grounded, stakeholder workshops to refine strategies - Cultural Strategy development
Refine strategies, implementation plan, external funding analysis and matching to implementation plan initiatives
The 10 strategies proposed to enhance Wollongong’s cultural tourism product were:
- Develop an immersive spiritual guided experience
- Create a single source on live performances and events
- Create signature cultural tourism events (Tier 1) that support the cultural brand sectors
- Promote venues for trial and refinement of live performances and an underbelly experience
- Create a visual experience sharing Wollongong’s top five stories ‘The Secrets of Wollongong’
- Further feasibility of a regional museum to do something really different
- Support Aboriginal led development of Aboriginal tourism product specific to Wollongong
- Develop the ability for local cafes to easily fuse Wollongong cultural stories within their venue
- Develop Wollongong inspired differentiated cooking school(s)
- Develop events that assist demonstrate the authentic cultural brand essence