Goulburn Region Tourism Partnership
Sustainable & Regenerative Tourism Live Webinar
In November 2023, The Tourism Collective team delivered a live online training webinar for local tourism businesses from the Goulburn tourism region in Victoria.
Greater Shepparton City, Mitchell Shire and Strathbogie Shire Councils have collaboratively formed the Goulburn Region Tourism Partnership project, which aims to strengthen and grow the visitor economy offering in the region.
A tailored presentation was crafted that supported businesses to see how they can operate socially, and environmentally consciously whilst also being successful.
Program Methodology
The one and a half hour live webinar introduced the concept of sustainable and regenerative tourism, and provided the inspiration and tools to implement a regenerative mindset that underpins all facets of running a tourism business - from operational management to visitor experiences and communications.
The businesses were taken on a positive impact journey across 8 focus areas:
- Time & Budget
- Customer
- Business Operations
- Waste
- Communications
- Community
- Culture
- Giving Back & Experience Development
Workshop Topic
The Why, What and How of Building a Sustainable & Regenerative Tourism Business
Content Themes
- Values & Purpose
- Sustainable & Regenerative Tourism Principles
- Practical Implementation Ideas
Key Outcomes for Tourism Business Owners
- Understand what their business purpose is, and how that aligns with Guest's motivations and behaviours.
- Understand what sustainability and regenerative means, and why it makes good business sense.
- Confidently start thinking about and mapping their sustainability and regenerative journey, with rock solid, practical steps to get started with both short and longer term actions.
- Understand sustainability is an ongoing journey, not a destination (or a tick box exercise!).
- Support their application/rating improvement of their chosen sustainability accreditations (eg. Ecotourism Australia Strive 4 Sustainability Scorecard, BCorp etc).
Results
A small number of representatives from tourism businesses and councils across the Goulburn tourism region attended the live webinar.
At the start and end of the webinar participants were asked “How confident do you feel in your ability to implement regenerative tourism practices in your business”
At start of the workshop survey:
- 29% of the attendees felt somewhat confident
- 43% felt slightly confident
- 14% not confident at all
- 14% fairly confident
By the end of the workshop, we asked the same question:
- 33% felt completely confident.
- 100% of attendees now felt completely confident, fairly or somewhat confident.
This outcome demonstrated that the content delivered specific, practical skills that enabled confidence within the learning cohort to implement their learnings into their businesses.
The team delivered everything as promised to a high standard and we would not hesitate to work with Tourism Collective in the future.
The Goulburn Region Tourism Partnership engaged the team at Tourism Collective to deliver a virtual learning sessions for our industry focused on Sustainable and Regenerative Tourism. We worked with Brooke and Nic for the project, both who were fantastic to deal with. Brooke assisted us in the program planning and was extremely organised, professional and had a lovely personable approach. Nic created a custom presentation for our region that was well structured and easy for operators to follow.