“Having the investment from someone who knows about how to enhance or develop a product for tourism can be a real trigger for growth.” – Louise Scott

If your destination needs to turn road trips into overnight stays, Yarra Valley and Dandenong Ranges is a region to watch. This part of Victoria, Australia is known internationally for its wineries and beautiful landscapes. People tend to visit by car from nearby Melbourne. They often think of the region, says CEO Louise Scott from Tourism East, as a day-trip destination. 

That’s a perception Tourism East is trying to change through a destination management plan launched in 2023. Encouraging more people to stay overnight is part of the puzzle. The region also needs to boost visitation on weekdays and help the tourism industry develop in a way that is economically resilient, while protecting the lands and waters it relies on, including the stunning Green Wedge areas often called the “lungs of Melbourne”. 

Tourism East, a member of the Destination Think Collective, is working on several strategies to make this happen. To help businesses adapt, the organization has run a mentoring initiative that connects local businesses with Melbourne-based operators. As Louise explains on the Travel Beyond podcast: “I think having the investment from someone who knows about how to enhance or develop a product for tourism can be a real trigger for growth.” 

Sometimes growth means expanding the available experiences to meet the needs and tastes of the many visitors who no longer drink as much wine as they used to. It also means hosting evening events and providing new accommodations. Louise says this will lead to new opportunities for storytelling and promoting the destination through itineraries to help people understand what’s available. 

Louise Scott spoke with guest host Brad Parsell to tell us how ambitious destination management is helping an industry steward the region and evolve with the times. 

On this episode of the Travel Beyond podcast, you’ll learn:

• How Tourism East is helping business owners adapt to changes in visitor behaviour.
• How the region is changing both stories and experiences to give visitors more reasons to stay overnight.
• How data collection has changed for Tourism East and what opportunities that brings.  
• Ideas for destinations trying to turn day trips from cities into overnight stays.

Show notes

Adams Farms – Producers of quality Brussels sprouts in the Yarra Valley, and home to the giant Brussels sprout.

Tourism East destination management plan – A 10-year tourism plan released in 2023.

Destination photo provided by Tourism East.

Transcript

Louise Scott: We recently ran a bit of a mentoring program with a group of businesses who were interested in  developing their products further.  Thinking about how to improve or diversify their product offering.

Sometimes I think having the investment from someone who knows about how to enhance or develop a product for tourism can be a real trigger for growth.

David Archer: Welcome to Travel Beyond. I’m David Archer from Destination Think, recording from Haida Gwaii, the territory of the Haida Nation off the north coast of British Columbia in Canada. On this show, we look at travel’s role in making a better world, and we highlight leading destinations and change makers. Our guests are taking local action that the world can learn from.

They’re helping to regenerate ecosystems, communities, and economies, and they’re often making positive change happen from the bottom up. Many of the voices we’ve highlighted are part of the Destination Think Collective, a peer group of dozens of ambitious, forward-thinking destinations working toward a better future for travel and the planet.

And a couple of episodes ago, we heard from Brad Parsell, the CEO at Kootenay Rockies Tourism in British Columbia, which is a Collective member destination. And like I mentioned, Brad will be leading the next set of interviews we share here, and that starts now.

Today’s episode is all about a destination seeking balance. Specifically, they’re working to turn more day trips from the big city into overnight stays, weeknights included.

The Yarra Valley and Dandenong Ranges is a region of the Australian state of Victoria. It’s within driving distance of Melbourne. Louise Scott leads the regional tourism organization here, and she tells us how they’re using their destination management plan to help the local food and wine industry adapt their tourism experiences in light of changing behavior, threats from climate change, and the need for more overnighters.

Here are Brad and Louise. 

Brad Parsell: Welcome Louise. Can you please tell us your name, your role, and where you work? 

Louise Scott: Thanks so much. Yeah, Louise Scott. I’m the CEO at Tourism East, which is the regional tourism body for the Yarra Valley, Dandenongs, Nillumbik and Cardinia in the east of Melbourne. 

Brad Parsell: Awesome. It’s a really beautiful part of Australia. And how long have you been in that role? 

Louise Scott: I’ve been here for almost a year. In fact, maybe we could see this as an anniversary podcast for a year at Tourism East. 

Brad Parsell: Yeah, anniversary podcast. That’s awesome. And you’re certainly no stranger to tourism in Australia. You’ve, you’ve been in Melbourne and Western Australia. 

Louise Scott: Yeah, that’s right, and other places as well. Yeah, City of Melbourne for seven years before Tourism East, and a good stint at Tourism Western Australia, which is the state tourism body over there. And, and previous to that back in Scotland as well, so I’m working in tourism space there too. Yeah. It feels like it’s a – a lifetime of tourism.

Brad Parsell: Yeah. You’ve definitely got a lot of experience. I’m super excited to talk to you today. So I thought maybe we could start – I think you’ve inherited a destination plan, which many destinations around the world have, and maybe we could start maybe just unpacking some of the, you know, some of the key things that that plan’s trying to address in your part of the world.

Louise Scott: Yeah, absolutely. So all of our tourism regions across Victoria, which is the state in Australia that we are in, if you don’t know where that is, it’s the bottom right-hand side of Australia. We all have destination management plans now working with government to create those, and ours was done in – published in 2023.

It really identified that our region has a significant day trip visitation, and that visitation is really valuable, obviously, to the region. We have about 5.3 million visitors a year generating over a billion dollars in expenditure. But the thing that we did identify is that midweek, we have significant downturn in visitation, and we also are probably the region in this area that has the sort of highest ratio of day trip visitation versus overnight visitation.

So there’s a huge disconnect between coming to the region and staying overnight and coming just for a day trip. 

Brad Parsell: Right. And is that kind of just mostly the proximity to Melbourne or are there other things driving that? 

Louise Scott: Yeah, the edges of the region are about 60 minutes from Melbourne.

There are a couple of other regions that are similarly distant from Melbourne and one of those, the Mornington Peninsula, is on the coast and is a significant second home holiday destination for locals and people who live maybe in Melbourne during the week and most of the year for work, but they might have a holiday place down in Mornington and so they go there for a week or more.

So there’s lots of holiday homes and opportunity for longer stays in Mornington, whereas in the Yarra Valley and the Dandenongs, although we do have accommodation, we find that people see it more as a day trip. And there’s a real job to do then in really showcasing what the region has to offer beyond a wine tasting and a meal or beyond a walk in the hills or a ride on the Puffing Billy steam train.

We really need to create itineraries and curate reasons for people to – to actually stay longer and make the most of a couple of nights or a week in the region. This is truly, you know, an extensive range of things that you could be doing, but it’s got a fixed perception, I think, locally as a day-trip destination.

Brad Parsell: Right. That data obviously is super helpful in forming the plan. How do you see data informing how you turn this around and how you actually bring this plan to life? 

Louise Scott: Yeah. It’s a great question. I’ve been digging into the data quite a bit since I started and we haven’t had as a regional tourism organization access to a lot of detailed data.

We have data provided by the state and federal governments in a national visitor survey and an international visitor survey. And interestingly, they’ve changed the way in which they collect the domestic data. In particular, it used to be done by surveys, and in the last 18 months that changed over to a survey that takes pings from mobile phones to identify where people are going.

And because of the change in data collection, you’re not really able to compare year-on-year for a period, and maybe in another six months we’ll be able to make a year-on-year comparison. But I think, in the advent of AI and technology, some companies have now been able to provide us with data coming from credit card spend.

And councils have had access to that data for a while, but it has been maybe quite challenging to get the right data for your region from the councils. And we’ve got three councils in our area, so that makes it even more complex. So I’ve recently invested in some data where I can look at it myself.

It’s based on credit card spend across the region and really allows us to look at a lot of different facets down to individual townships as well as for the whole region. And I think that’s gonna be really useful to help us understand the region’s strengths and opportunities. 

Brad Parsell: Yeah, totally. I wonder if we could talk a little bit about, I mean, historically, you know, when I think of the Yarra Valley and the Dandenong, it’s – you know, you’re pretty known for wine. And, you know, it really is the wine region. You know, before we hit record here, we were talking a little bit, it’s a bit of an interesting time for the wine industry, and I wonder if maybe we could talk about that a little bit, what you’re seeing in your region.

Louise Scott: Yeah, absolutely. That was certainly an area of interest to me now, coming relatively new into the organization and seeing a lot of media about a challenging environment that the wine industry finds itself in. I read this week that consumption’s at the lowest level since 1962. And, you know, young people are choosing to drink less.

People are impacted by cost of living challenges and perhaps spending a little less. Hopefully they’re choosing, you know, better quality and having less of it versus just not drinking at all. But there’s certainly a change in culture around alcohol, which from a health perspective is good to see.

But when you have a region that’s got such a strong wine offering we really need to work closely with the industry to identify ways that they can collaborate to reduce cost or they can diversify their offer into food or accommodation alongside the wine offer or look at different markets and different uses for their premises.

So maybe reaching into the incentive or the conference space, weddings – 

Brad Parsell: Right, yeah. 

Louise Scott: … and really, you know, thinking about all of the ways in which their assets could be used rather than focusing solely on either wine tasting or cellar door offering. And it’s not gonna be possible for everyone to do that but it is also a marketing challenge for us, because there are limitations to how you can promote wine.

But there’s not the same limitation as to how you can promote a destination. So looking to package up, I think, the offer in the space of the making stories around wine and we’ve also got distillers of gin and rum and things in the region as well. So, trying to make sure that they are part of the bigger picture, and whilst the region has that level of international visibility as a wine destination, it’s only – only can be a great wine destination because of the landscape and the quality of the soil and, you know, all of the things that are needed to go into making great wine also make great food produce. 

So we’re also, you know, a place that produces a significant amount of food in the region. And in fact, in the history, in years and years gone by, you know, wine was planted, then there was a downturn.

Some of the wine became fruit and veg, if you like. And then again an upturn through the ’70s brought more wine into the region, and I think, you know, any of these types of things have periods where they thrive and then periods where they are not so thriving, and people have to adjust.

So I guess we’re here to try and work with those businesses and share ideas as to how they might be able to utilize their assets in, in a broader sense as well. 

Brad Parsell: Yeah. And I – there’s lots of rich storytelling in there around, like we were talking a little bit how in Canada, anyway, here where I am, agritourism and culinary tourism has become quite a big thing.

The Okanagan Valley in Canada is also a big wine growing region, and I know they’ve had lots of challenges with climate change and wildfires and – 

Louise Scott: Yeah, same here – 

Brad Parsell: …early frosts and things with crops as well. So that’s another sort of interesting component. But it lends itself to an interesting experience where you can kinda learn a little bit about this stuff, potentially, anyway.

Louise Scott: Yeah, absolutely. I think there’s multiple challenges. It’s not just economic or reduction in alcohol consumption. On top of that, you do have natural disasters and they impact Australia quite significantly as well. And also other beasties, as I would call them, in being more prevalent and you know, I think sometimes you think, you know, what’s coming next?

It’ll be the plague of locusts, so, and in fact, they do come. So there’s definitely lots of challenges in the natural environment, and we’re obviously caretakers of that as well, and looking to work sustainably with our industry to get the best outcomes as well. 

Brad Parsell: Yeah. So what, you know, thinking about the role of the, of your organization in this and trying to sort of, you know, move the region from day visits to more overnight and trying to sort of expand the offering, if you will, just beyond sort of the flagship of what’s historically been wine, what are some of the things you’re thinking, you know, looking at the data and looking at the plan and thinking about the next year or two? Is there sort of anything that stands out?

Louise Scott: Yeah, I think the packaging of experiences, not necessarily in a, you know, a package you can buy, but really looking at creative ways to help people understand what they can do. It’s quite a large region covering, you know, quite a big space. But if you’re to base yourself in the Yarra Valley or in the Dandenongs, you could spend time walking, experiencing nature.

There’s an incredible number of gardens across the Dandenong Ranges. Beautiful redwood forest. There’s amazing range of places to have tea and scones and cake and coffee and so, you know, building those elements up alongside our hero products of our steam train Puffing Billy, Healesville Sanctuary, which is – has all the native animals in it, and they are, you know, looking after their health as well as helping people better understand the native animals of Australia. Some key tent poles. We’re very lucky in the region to have so many tent poles in a way. You might have wine as the leading piece.

But in addition to that, we have these attractions and – but building them into itineraries and also thinking, maybe, about who are the people that are coming to the region. We have quite a significant Chinese and Indian populations in Melbourne. In fact, I think Melbourne has the biggest Indian population in Australia, and they might want different things and, you know, I’m sitting in an office with probably no one that has Chinese or Indian heritage, so, I’ve initiated working with a local PR agency who are doing posting on RedNote for us in Chinese, with Chinese influencers. We give them some guidance as to what a trip might look like, and then they put that together. Now, the way they present that is not how I would instruct someone to present something for an audience that’s maybe not a multicultural audience, you know? A different, your traditional audience, if you like. And so that, I think, helps us address that our audience is really mixed. And that they’re not all on Facebook and Instagram. Their Chinese audience are gonna be on RedNote and WeChat, and if we’re, we don’t have a presence there, then who knows where they’re getting their information from about what there is to see in the region.

Brad Parsell: Right. 

Louise Scott: And so we generally, when we – 

Brad Parsell: Especially in the age of generative AI. 

Louise Scott: Oh, for sure. 

Brad Parsell: Like, you never know. 

Louise Scott: Yeah. 

Brad Parsell: Yeah, totally. 

Louise Scott: And we try and work with them to do sort of a couple of days in the region, so there would be an accommodation part of that. It’s not just about the things to do, so we always tie in somewhere to stay.

We’ve got a big reputation for hot air ballooning, as well, in our region, and really that’s probably best done if you stay overnight so you don’t have to get up too early. 

Brad Parsell: Yeah, totally. 

Louise Scott: And so I think, you know, that’s one way of addressing the challenge is, is telling stories and creating those itineraries that feel like must-dos. And, you know, I do remember reading an article myself in Australian Traveler. I think it was about a weekend in Byron Bay. And I basically just picked that article up and did that weekend myself ’cause it was easy to do. 

Brad Parsell: Nice. Yeah.

Louise Scott: And I read it. I thought, “This feels like something I want to do. Let’s go do that.” And I think, you know, people are time poor now. If you can, you know – 

Brad Parsell: Totally. 

Louise Scott: … get to them, they read something, “Wow, that sounds amazing,” then hopefully they make a decision to come and enjoy and experience the region and stay overnight.

Brad Parsell: Totally. No, I think itineraries are actually kind of underrated, almost, at this– at this point. I think, you know, it can really kind of help people visualize, especially ’cause we both run regional destinations that are quite large and multiple communities, multiple experiences, and you know, people can get analysis paralysis – 

Louise Scott: Yeah.

Brad Parsell: …pretty quickly if you try to figure out, “How do I get from here to here.” –  

Louise Scott: Yeah, definitely. 

Brad Parsell: … and putting that in front of them. 

Louise Scott: Definitely. 

Brad Parsell: So there’s definitely some storytelling marketing component. Are you thinking anything about sort of experience development as well? You know, we talked a little bit about, potentially wineries diversifying into lodging, or food, restaurants. You know, is there work to do there? 

Louise Scott: We also have a particular winery I’m thinking of that changed up its operating model, and they were very much known for weddings, with a nice restaurant. And they’ve recently worked with us to diversify into the international market, so building product that’s sellable to ITOs.

And that’s a specific sort of wine tasting type of product, but it sits alongside. They’ve also got accommodation and a restaurant and a bit of a spa on site, so they’re able to really tap into an experience that can be more than just the wine tasting. It has a number of elements to it.

And I think where you could lean into that type of, um, experience development, you’ve got an opportunity then, um, to attract visitation. We’ve also been working closely with Tourism Australia on their wine program, where they have a luxury experience program, and three of our wineries I think are now partnering with that program. And so that’s about having critical mass, ’cause if you’ve only got one winery, then is it worth coming to that region? If you’ve got three, then there’s probably more in addition to that. 

Brad Parsell: Yeah. 

Louise Scott: And someone who really wants that luxury experience in the wine space can see our destination now as a credible place to choose to come on holiday because there’s enough in the wine experience, then, to bring them here. And then once they understand the broader offer of the region, you’re really then able to see the value in actually staying overnight or staying in a winery, where previously you probably couldn’t even do that. And now you’ve got, you know, options to stay on site as well, which is great. 

Brad Parsell: Yeah. It’s super interesting, like sort of developing that lead experience but into something a bit different. This has been fantastic. I – obviously, most of the audience that listen to this podcast is tourism people. And I wonder just as we sort of look to wrap up here, if, you know, you’ve got a lot of experience and, and, you know, is there any other advice that you’d give to destinations who, you know, might be in a similar boat who are very, have proximity to a large city and are trying to, you know, turn day visitation into more overnights?

Is anything you’d throw out there for folks to be thinking about in this space? 

Louise Scott: I think one of the opportunities is in the event space in terms of giving people reasons to come. And if those events spill into evening rather than just daytime, you’ve got a good reason to stay overnight, because people may not wish to drive after attending an event.

And it’s on a country road in the dark that might be, you know, less attractive for people to drive, you know, all the way home, where they could actually choose to stay in the destination. So we’re actively trying to encourage events that last for more than a day or that have evening components so that we can build in and work with the accommodation in the region to tie in offers and deals.

So we have an event in October that’s a comedy event that happens at one of the – it actually happens at the Cherryhill cherry farm. And we ran a webinar for our partners to come on, listen to the webinar, hear from the event organizers, and then the point of that was to encourage them to then think about how they could leverage the event to drive more accommodation bookings or to encourage people to do other things as well as attend the comedy.

So you might go to a comedy for a day, you might go for the – two days. But to go for two days, you probably should stay overnight. So let’s make sure people know that there is accommodation. I think part of the challenge is actually people just don’t even know that there is accommodation in the region as well.

Brad Parsell: Right. 

Louise Scott: So I’m on a bit of a quest in my mind to think about how do you, you know, raise the profile of what accommodation there is so that people don’t think there’s none. Having said that, because we’ve got a large level of wedding business, particularly during the warmer months, often at weekends, it can be difficult to get accommodation.

So you get back into this sort of cycle of, do you promote weekends or midweek? Do you do overnight or day trip? And you need a bit of everything. But what you need to grow is the bits that are at the lower level whilst maintaining, you know, what you have throughout the rest of the year. Yeah, it’s a nice challenge. 

Brad Parsell: Yeah. And one that I think you’re going to take on – 

Louise Scott: Yay. We’ll get there. 

Brad Parsell: … pretty well, by the sounds of it. 

Louise Scott: Yeah, definitely. I mean, there’s lots of elements to it, but yeah, absolutely.

Brad Parsell: It’s – totally. And I understand you have an offering if people are big Brussels sprouts fans.

I’m just gonna squeeze this in at the end, but I only found this out, if you wanna tell first. 

Louise Scott: Yeah. Well, I mean, it’s really an interesting one just as you come into the Yarra Valley, we have one of the largest Brussels sprout farms in Australia, and it’s right there to see. 

They have a giant Brussels sprout. You have to have a giant something, you know, if you know anything about Australia, you know we have lots of giant things. So we have – 

Brad Parsell: It’s true, yeah.

Louise Scott: … a giant Brussels sprout, which is quite cute. You can see him from the road. 

Brad Parsell: That’s amazing. And the team there actually have a premises – farm premises on site where weddings occur.

So, you know, there’s something for everyone in, in the region, and the, the food produce is quite phenomenal. I’m really struck when I drive around at the range of orchards and food produce. Actually another funny one, I saw a lemon farm that’s called John Lemon. And I’m still tickled by it – 

Brad Parsell: I love it.

Louise Scott: … every time I drive past it. But, you know, you can just drive through and you see all of these beautiful fields and orchards, and we’re really, you know, one of the biggest producers of food in our region beyond the wine produce as well. So we’re definitely a fertile landscape here.

Brad Parsell: Totally. Well, this has been so great. Thank you so much for your time today, Louise. This has been really fun. Okay. 

Louise Scott: Thanks, Brad. Good to chat. 

Brad Parsell: This has been Travel Beyond, presented by Destination Think. I’m Brad Parsell, the CEO at Kootenay Rockies Tourism and a member of the Destination Think Collective.

Many thanks to Louise, the CEO from Tourism East in Victoria, Australia, for joining me as today’s guest. For show notes and to learn more about the Collective, please visit destinationthink.com. This episode was produced and has theme music composed by David Archer. Amy Bjarnason and Katie Baur provided production support.

And if you like what you hear, please take a moment to give us a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It helps more people find us. We’ll be back next time, so until then, take care.