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A FOUR YEAR Sustainable Tourism Plan was endorsed at last week's council meeting.
As noted in the September 17 council agenda, the plan ‘aims to enrich Mansfield Shire’s visitor economy while safeguarding the unique charm, pristine natural environment and high quality of life’.
Council said their consultative process was undertaken through engagement with almost 300 stakeholders across surveys, workshops and from June to August drafts of the plan were released for community feedback with the changes included in the final version.
The plan incorporates two documents with the first including a summary and an overview of the consultation process alongside the vision for Mansfield Shire which receives over 600,000 visitors per year and the second is a sustainable tourism plan.
Cr Rohan Webb said the plan has been a very long time coming and outlined why he thinks it is so important.
“Failure to act on the fantastic opportunity that is our tourism industry would be a grave mistake,” he said.
“I think this plan is a good start and I’m excited to see the further work that is going to come with it including setting some aspirational targets and working with a number of different stakeholders.
“These include our incredible tourism operators and other industries like Tourism North East.
“Tourism visitors coming to the Mansfield Shire is an enormous resource and it really is up to us now to paint our future with it, so that is why I’m very much in favour of this plan.”
Cr James Tehan added that it was really encouraging to see so many people at the tourism workshop held at the Mansfield Hotel last week.
“We can draw up plans like this, but it’s only going to work if the community gets involved,” he said.
“There was enthusiasm there and a lot of great ideas that came out of it.
“It’s a good step forward to get people behind it and get it moving.”
As outlined in the agenda, council’s next steps are the development of the Destination Management Action Plan in collaboration with stakeholders across the tourism industry.