The Somerset Region currently receives around 458,000 day-trip visitors, 162,000 domestic overnight visitors and just 3,000 international visitors. A (conservative) strategic target is to generate an uplift in visitation to the region by 10%. The initiatives put forward in this report, if implemented by Council, will help realise a desired economic outcome defined by a 10% increase in visitation to the region, which would see visitor expenditure increase from $66 million per annum to approximately $73 million.

Economic modelling suggests that the direct addition (uplift) in visitor expenditure of $7 million in the Somerset Region would lead to a corresponding direct addition of 57 full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs in the local economy and a further 27 FTE jobs resulting indirectly through production and consumption multipliers, for a total estimated increase of 84 FTE jobs in the Somerset Region.

These anticipated economic output and employment impacts represent a strong return on investment from Council’s commitment to the implementation of the Somerset Tourism Strategy. These desired outcomes, along with progress made on individual actions, will be monitored through regular (annual) Somerset Region tourism operator surveys and customer / visitor satisfaction surveys; subscription to regularly updated data sources such as profile.id and economy.id or REMPLAN; and Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Census data and Business Register data. Strategy progress and performance will be reported annually. The Somerset Tourism Strategy will be reviewed annually and updated in five years.