Hervey Bay Gossip

Over the last six to eight weeks here in Hervey Bay we’ve heard a lot about the plans Kingfisher had to move their Fraser Island boat terminal from Urangan to River Heads and dispense with the catamarans and focus all their shipping traffic to the barges. The move was supposed to take effect at the end of October but the Gossip has now heard a whisper that nothing is going to happen until February at the earliest … and possibly not even then.

It seems that someone didn’t think to get the required clearance for the increased usage River Heads from the Fraser Coast Regional Council. I wonder if the move was ever really on … the move from high-speed catamarans to slow barges with limited access for people who couldn’t handle the stairs always seemed a backward step to me.

The new Ramada resort in Hervey Bay opens for business on Tuesday and as late as Sunday morning people were still working hard to finish the building.

The choice of the person to be the face of the new resort is sure to raise some eyebrows among locals who have been in Hervey Bay for more than a couple of years and it certainly didn’t impress one neighbor who had this sign on a driveway next to the new resort “Bugger off girlie the driveway isn’t yours.”

Will we see Ramada go the same way as Peppers Pier Resort? Only time will tell.

Earlier this week Peppers Pier Resort and the Bayswater Hotel and Restaurantin Hervey Bay went into receivership.

It was only a few years ago that Peppers Pier Resort was heralded as the beginning of a new age of tourism in Hervey Bay but it looks as though that new age never quite dawned. Tourist numbers are down and in an effort to maintain occupancy rates the resort was charging well below the market rate. As one industry insider said to me this week: “it’s hard to make any money when you’re charging 2.5 star rates for 5 star accommodation”.

Included in the receivership at the resort are 20 units which does make you wonder how the people who invested money in all the other units are doing. It also makes you wonder when either the Fraser Coast Regional Council or the Tourism Board is going to wake up to the fact that Hervey Bay lost its stranglehold on the whale watching market at least two years ago.

While it may be winter down south this is the perfect time to visit Hervey Bay and the Fraser Coast. If you’re looking for some great holiday deals on the Fraser Coast then check out the Queensland Holidays website here or visit the best site for Hervey Bay accommodation

While most tourism operators in Hervey Bay would like to see the start of the whale watching season let’s face some facts … the spotting of two whales off Kingfisher Bay does not mean that the whale watching season has come early.

Whales seldom come this far down into the bay and when they do it’s more likely to be much later in the season. Add to that the fact that it’s not unknown for whales to come across the bar at the southern end of the Fraser Island and swim up the bay on their northward migration. So let’s not get too excited just yet, the whales will come to Hervey Bay as they do every year … in their own good time.

Let’s just hope that the tourists come too … there’s certainly plenty great things to see and do in Hervey Bay even without the whales.

Yesterday’s sunrise from the beachfront at Torquay

Jetstar will no longer fly into Hervey Bay from July 30. Currently Jetstar flies the Sydney/Hervey Bay route four times a week and provides 56,000 seats a year.

The Fraser Coast Chronicle quotes Councillor Nioa - who holds the tourism and marketing portfolio on the Fraser Coast Regional Council - as saying “… the fly market was a developing but not yet crucial part of tourism on the Fraser Coast.”

Yeah right! It may not be as big as the drive market is but to say that it’s “not crucial” is just wishful thinking.

… the tough don’t rely on the Government or the Fraser Coast Regional Council for help

If you run a business here in Hervey Bay that attracts a lot of tourists to the town you might expect that the Fraser Coast Regional Council and the regional tourism board might be interested in promoting what you’re doing. Unfortunately if you thought that you would be mistaken.

The Fraser Coast Regional Council hides behind the excuse that it can’t be seen to be favouring one part of the area over another … so it doesn’t do much for anyone and the regional tourism council … well when the going gets tough they either go on holidays or schedule their promotions for the wrong time of year.

So with little hope of help from anyone in authority there are now two groups here in Hervey Bay who are doing there own thing to promote this town and all that it has to offer to tourists.

Holiday Hervey Bay was started by a number of concerned independant resort operators. These are the little people who run resorts like La Mer, Tingeera, Shelly Bay Resort and many more around Hervey Bay. They weren’t happy with the way Hervey Bay was being promoted by the tourism board, or the board’s timing in some of the promotions they have run recently, and so they decided to so something about it.

The first step was Holiday Hervey Bay, a website designed to attract people to the town for a lot more than just whale watching and Fraser Island. They want to encourage tourists see the attractions in town and to use Hervey Bay as a base and travel out to the surrounding areas where there are plenty of things to do and see. There are a lot of local businesses and service providers coming on board to support this group because we can see that if we want this town to grow then we’re going to have to do the hard work ourselves.

We here at Total Website Management are donating our time to this very worthy cause and we challenge other small businesses here in Hervey Bay to pitch in and help too.

For more information about the Holiday Hervey Bay group call Kevin Smith at La Mer on 4128 3494.

Down in Scarness there’s a small group of local businesses who are banding together to try and promote their part of town and at the same time provide some entertainment for the people of Hervey Bay. Of course it’s a struggle when the Fraser Coast Regional Council doesn’t respond to their requests because someone always seems to be on holidays (seems someone at the Council has been taking a leaf out of the tourism board’s staff handbook).

If you’re a local business and you want to help those local businesses down at Scarness then talk to Stuart at Fraser Sands Crystal and Glassware at Shop 1 352 The Esplanade Scarness, he would love to hear from you.

While the outward signs are that Hervey Bay is enjoying a reasonable Christmas/January period some figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics are not good news.

The tourism deficit for Australia in October - the number that shows that more Australians took holidays overseas and fewer international tourists came to Australia - is the biggest in 23 years.

While Hervey Bay and the Fraser Coast seem to be enjoying a good holiday season with tourist numbers similar to previous years there may be some rough times ahead.

Tourism Australia is expecting inbound travel from overseas destinations to drop by 4.1 per cent next year. This in turn will lead to job losses in tourism related industries and the downturn is likely to last beyond the next 12 months.

While there is expected to be a boost in domestic travel and tourism it’s not going to be enough to ease the pain that the industry is about to feel.

The school holidays start in Queensland today and that means that here in Hervey Bay we should start to see the caravan parks fill up.

Of course with the gloomy economic outlook Australia is facing the tourist season may not be what we were hoping for but already there are signs in the caravan parks along the Esplanade that visitors are starting to arrive.