| Local knowledge key in promotion |
| By The Editor
Editorial comment
Bendigo’s accommodation is booked out for this weekend. That’s good. Tourism is one area where money comes into the city and adds significantly to the local economy.
What’s not so good is that there is a clash of large-scale events that would have served the city better if they had not been held on the same day.
The council rightly advises organisers of events to steer clear of times like the Labour Day weekend and Easter, although a survey of motels last weekend showed many did not have the house-full signs out.
Possibly the Madison cycling and athletics carnival needs some work to build the numbers. Originally called the ‘Bendigo Thousand’ the sports meeting ran over three days with the championship races held on the Monday.
But back to the problem of too many events on the one weekend.
It would not be fair to place too much blame on the council because the senior people involved in the upgraded tourism department are new to Bendigo. While communication is the key, so too is local knowledge and that can only be gained over time.
Skill in promotion is also needed. The Madison did not rate a mention in most (if not all) state-wide news services, whereas the Ballarat Begonia Festival did.
The news last weekend also highlighted the much-reduced Moomba Festival in Melbourne as “Australia’s longest running festival” which is simply not true.
Our Easter Fair has that honour, but the chances are that come this Easter, the Stawell Gift will be highlighted nationally and the Bendigo Easter Fair will not.
Somehow the city needs to rekindle its ability to promote. In days of yore it was local retailer Albert Matthews who spearheaded the Bendigo Thousand.
He formed an organisation called the Commonwealth Athletic Club to run what was then the richest footrace in the world. Grand thinking.
The CAC sounded like a world body, but it was just an extremely well-run local organisation.
People like Albert Matthews are still around today – a way must be found to get them involved.
Adios Amigo
Mexican food producer Rosita’s is to move to Melbourne.
This disappointing news will result in the loss of more than 100 jobs, and is a blow to the council’s attempt to establish a high-class food manufacturing precinct in Bendigo.
There is a limit to what local councils can do to encourage manufacturing enterprises against the lure of the big cities.
State and federal governments could do it, but the reality is while political strength resides in the state capital cities there will be little but token gestures in support of decentralisation.
It is more than 30 years since there was any serious move to assist country towns. In the 1970s the Victorian government established a series of development committees in the main provincial cities, and the federal government got involved too.
Remember the Albury-Wodonga Development Corporation, or Adelaide’s Multi-function Polis?
In the early ’70s the Victorian effort did result in Empire Rubber and Sinclair (now Keech) Foundry moving to Bendigo, while Eaglehawk gained a much-enlarged (and now gone) Stafford Ellinson factory.
The federal government should take a hard look at the benefits decentralisation would bring to the whole nation, and, for example, could use its taxation laws to encourage businesses to locate outside the metropolises.
What would be wrong with giving businesses in the bush a 100 per-cent tax write-off for capital equipment in the year of acquisition? A simple move like that might have been enough to keep Rositas here.
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