A five year vision for the tourism industry has been launched by Premier Richard Court.
Partnership 21 aims to generate $5 billion in visitor expenditure and create 8,500 new jobs for Western Australians by 2004-2005.
Mr Court said the plan contained “innovative strategies that build on the successful Brand WA campaign featuring Elle Macpherson”.
“The State Government has committed an extra $5.54 million for its implementation,” Mr Court said.
Partnership 21 was the result of one of the largest consultation processes ever undertaken in WA, taking sixteen months and more than 100 meetings.
Features of the plan include the creation of the WA Tourism Network, support for regional areas and an interactive, nature-based ‘edge’ to tourism attractions.
Mr Court said the WA Tourism Network was an online database of WA holiday information.
It will link regional tourist bureaus, sales outlets and a call centre using voice recognition technology to divert callers to the most appropriate source of information.
Mr Court said that $840,000 would be spent on the necessary infrastructure to implement the network model.
Tourism Minister Norman Moore said the State Government would ensure regional tourist bureaus were online and easily accessible via the Internet.
“Regional areas stand to gain much from Partnership 21, including expenditure of $600,000 over the next five years on a strategy called It’s Happening in WA to encourage more events to be staged in country areas,” Mr Moore said.
