On a personal level I empathise with our community as so many individuals suffered and died as a result of COVID-19 so I would not wish to repeat the last two years but the reality remains that our regional tourism economy benefited from the international lockdowns.

The challenge I gave ourselves in my previous memo was to continue to capture those tourism dollars.

Tomorrow our community will be taking a significant step in continuing the momentum we have built up over the last two years.

ALSO MAKING NEWS:

I will be attending a meeting in Sydney along with John Larkin from the Royal Flying Doctor Visitor Experience; Steve Hinks, chief executive officer of Taronga Western Plains Zoo; Jamie Angus who is manager regional experiences at Dubbo Regional Council and Josie Howard who is the manager of economic development and marketing at Dubbo Regional Council.

We will be pitching our collaborative tourism program known as the Great Big Adventure Pass to Sydney media outlets.

In the zoo we have a tourist attraction that drops over 700 people on our doorstep every single day of the year.

That gives us a huge advantage over so many other regional areas.

The objective of the rest of the community is to hold on to those visitors that are already here.

The Great Big Adventure Pass is a single transaction ticket that gives tourists entry in to the Dubbo zoo; the Royal Flying Doctor Visitor Experience; the Old Dubbo Gaol and the Wellington Caves.

By making it easy for visitors and convenient with one purchase for all four attractions, the data shows that we will hold on to those tourists in our community for a longer period of time.

The Holy Grail is to add another overnight stay to a planned visit by a tourist.

We know each overnight stay injects significantly more money in to our economy with the overnight accommodation and another meal or two and possibly some additional shopping.

By taking this concept in to the heart of Sydney, the aim is to attract some of these media outlets out to the region to experience these attractions and ultimately, create stories on their experiences.

The Sydney market is still a huge potential area for tourism and we intend to try and continue attracting Sydney tourists to our region - where not just Dubbo wins but the region benefits.

As a simple example, the Buick Car Club just finished their visit to Dubbo where they spent a week based in Dubbo and did day trips around the region.

They visited Narromine; Trangie; Yeoval; Wellington; Parkes and more in their week in the region.

As with so many items, when Dubbo wins, the region wins.