Updating

Lots have happened since our last post.

The Marketing workshops in Dorrigo, Bellingen, Coffs Harbour and Nambucca were as successful as the previous ones held in Walcha, Armidale and Guyra. Lots of very interesting inputs and new ideas. It is good to see the communities taking ownership pf the project! Way to go!

You can access the text transcription of the posters presented by the participants during these conversations on the links below:

:: Walcha
:: Armidale
:: Guyra
:: Dorrigo
:: Bellingen
:: Coffs-Harbour
:: Nambucca

We are also working on conceptual maps that represent the key ideas brought to surface in each of the meetings, as follows:

:: Walcha Map
:: Armidale Map
:: Guyra Map
:: Dorrigo Map
(others to come)

Last week, Thursday 16th November, the Principles and Protocols workshop took place in Dorrigo, facilitated by Mick O'Loughlin. The outcomes fo this workshop will be posted soon in this blog.

Walcha, Armidale, Uralla and Guyra

The round of workshops last week held in Walcha, Armidale and Guyra were extremelly insightfull and successfull!

With around 70 participants, apart from highlighting the beauty of their country and their favourite tourism activities in and outside the region, some very interesting ideas arose from the communities in relation to sustainable tourism promotion in the area, such as:

:: Quality targeted advertisement;
:: Communication tools, using easy-spread information formats, as iPods and MP3s;
:: Packages: linking places and businesses for specific visitor markets;
:: Well informed guides: information + inspiration = education; and
:: Targeting Family / City markets.

Some shots from the workshops:

Walcha - Tue, 16 October

Armidale/Uralla - Wed, 17 October

Guyra - Thu, 18 October

If you would like to see more photos from the workshops, please, write us on: waterfalltracks@gmail.com

Sustainable Tourism Strategy Workshops

The first round of workshops for the Waterfall Tracks Network project started today.
At this stage the communities are being engaged on:

1. identifying their favourite or recommended nature based and ecotourism experiences and the uniqueness about them;

2. giving input on how we could make nature based or ecotourism experience more appealing; and

3. insights on which would be the best tools to be developed to help build nature based and ecotourism experiences in the region that would attract visitors from Australia and overseas.

The first workshop of this round was held today, in Walcha, and had the presence of key local stakeholder and community members.

The list below shows the dates and places of the next 6 workshops to be held in the region. They start at 12noon and finish at 2pm. A light lunch is provided.

We need your input!! Find the date and place that most suits you and join us in this exciting project!!

:: Armidale & Urala - Wed 18 Oct, Armidale Dumaresq Council
:: Guyra - Thu 19 Oct, Guyra Bowling & Recreation Club
:: Dorrigo - Tue 24 Oct, Dorrigo CWA Rooms
:: Bellingen - Wed 25 Oct, Bellingen Shire Council
:: Coffs Harbour - Thu 26 Oct, Southern Cross University [Rm MLG13]
:: Nambucca - Fri 27 Oct, Nambucca Shire Council

For more information, please, contact us: waterfalltracks@gmail.com.