Opinion: Wake up Douglas Shire residents
Opinion: Wake up call for Douglas Shire residents
Tuesday March 31 2015, 11:00am
The word around town seems to be "forward bookings are up, should have a great year".
Before we all celebrate lets analyse how successful have we really been in our Tourist Business. Douglas Inc has just released its 2015 Overview Economic Report with a few pertinent facts.
Tourism is 85% of the Douglas Shire economy. If you adjust the Tourism $ value and index it by CPI then the Tourism value is the same as it was 20 years ago. Adjusting the last 20 years by an index of the average Australian wage, which reflects peoples ability to pay, then the real value of Tourism has gone down by close to 20% in 20 years.
So, the real value of revenue has gone down over 20 years which is now shared by more accommodation and retail shops than there were 20 years ago!
The Douglas Inc. Report is a challenge to Douglas Shire Council to explain why our Region is suffering real stagnation.
Where is a 'Plan' to reverse this, as they claim is one of the central cornerstones of their responsibilities?
More reading:
