Businesses vote with their feet
It's a clear message.
Alpine Shire Tourism Awards Dinner cancelled
If ever there was proof that the Alpine council’s tourism promotion program is out of step with the industry, irrelevant and useless, here it is:
Tonight’s $50 per head Alpine Shire Tourism awards Dinner has been cancelled due to lack of ticket sales.
It’s about time other operators woke up and withdrew their support of the council’s so-called tourism drive. I’ve been saying for years that it’s a white elephant and a bureaucratic waste of money. The council, in all its 15 years plus of sucking money out of local industry to fund its charade, has achieved nothing of benefit to the local tourist industry and has actually held it back by draining several million dollars that should and could have been put to better use. Like how about promoting Bright on TV in Melbourne?
The first thing that needs to happen is for the special rate that the council charges on commercial properties (above & beyond normal rates) to fund its tourism drive to be dropped. Its tourism department should then be abandoned and it should be left up to the local industry (particularly here in Bright) to promote itself. Getting rid of the special rate would be a bloody good start as it would immediately free up a huge amount of operator capital to start up an industry-led promotional group – you know, one that actually advertises!
But it’s up to the operators to get together and demand this. Ball’s in their court.
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Promoting 'Beautiful Bright'.
Click 
Do the businesses in Myrtleford and Mt Beauty pay the “special rate” for tourism or is it just applicable to Bright?
It’s shire wide, Andrew, but realistically most of the money raised by it comes from Bright properties.
Well, watching tv this morning was a kick in the teeth really. Beechworth is now advertising their Celtic weekend. This is a town that doesn’t get charged a commercial rate and doesn’t have half the visitors Bright gets yet can manage to
put up a tv campaign. This Shire is a monumental stuff up in all areas. The new restaurant/residence being constructed on Wills street is now on hold because of a massive planning stuff up due to zoning. Either way the council is going to pay in either a massive compo claim or end up at VCAT. Either way the rate payers will be paying again. When will heads roll in this sub standard service organization???
I fixed your comment for you, John. Thanks for that info about the Wills St property, which was news to me. Do you know any more details about it?
As for Beechworth, did you know that our Tourism & Economic Development Manager actually lives in that town? Not that I think there’s any connection or anything necessarily wrong with having someone trusted with promoting tourism in the Alpine Shire who resides in a competing shire, but it just seems ironic. Actually, I recently met with Clayton and I think he does understand that the council’s tourism drive has been a monumental failure. Something has to give soon because it’s just become a sick joke that we are charged an extra 50% on our rates and get nothing back for it.
Ray, apparently, and I impress apparently at this stage, the council initially gave approval for the new residence/restaurant to be built and to operate and now “apparently” have done a back flip and realized it is not zoned correctly for this use. Major f#%k up. I as prospective business owner would be peeved if this was the case. I have friends that are also building in the shire and are finding it impossible to deal with council. When will some change occur down in Churchill ave. I feel like a Christian waiting for the second coming of Christ
Well it’s certainly in the CBD, albeit a back street, and it would surprise me if the zoning wasn’t Commercial, meaning they’d have an ‘as of right’ and wouldn’t need a permit for the use as a restaurant, only for things like parking, signage and normal building matters.
Only calling it as I’ve been told. But can u imagine the carton of eggs that I’ll send to Churchill Ave
I’m not suggesting you’re wrong, John, only that I’m suprised that Camp Street is not zoned for that use.