29 May 2014

Somerset Regional Council commissioned The Group to develop a Destination Management Plan and a Destination Marketing Brand for the Somerset region. The DMP provided recommendations for both product development and marketing/branding initiatives to help grow Somerset’s tourism offering in a sustainable manner and to deliver benefits to local tourism businesses and the wider local community.

02 Mar 2014

The Group was commissioned by Redlands City Council to update its 2010 – 2014 Tourism Strategy for the period 2015 – 2020. The Redlands LGA includes the Redlands mainland, the Southern Moreton Bay Islands, North Stradbroke Island as well as Coochiemudlo Island.

As part of this, The Group also had to develop a robust 5 year Action Plan to support the Tourism Strategy. A key requirement of the action plan was that it contain realistic and implementable actions (both in their time frame and budget).

29 May 2013

The Group was commissioned by Clarence Valley Council to undertake a Review of Tourism Services in the region. The primary objectives of the review were to examine the current and likely future needs of the tourism industry across the region, provide a recommendation for the optimum method to deliver effective tourism services and to explore the governance related arraignments and options that provide the maximum level of benefit to the tourism sector.

29 May 2013

The Stafford Group completed a destination management plan for the Snowy Mountains region of NSW. The DMP was developed following the ARTN guidelines for best practice destination management planning. Whilst the DMP was to cover a 10 year period and therefore was more strategic in nature, the Plan also focused on a range of tactical and tangible outcomes which could be generated in the short to medium term.

01 Mar 2013

The Stafford Group was engaged by the East Coast Regional Tourism Organisation to develop a Destination Management Plan for the East Coast region in Tasmania. The East Coast region covers from Orford in the south, up to St Helens in the North.

The DMP developed followed the ARTN guidelines for best practice destination management but also included a number of additional steps to ensure the DMP was tailored specifically for the East Coast region.

The DMP provided a range of recommendations for both product development and marketing initiatives to help grow the East Coast tourism industry in a sustainable manner.

29 May 2012

The Group was commissioned by Launceston City Council, with support from Tourism Tasmania, to develop a Strategic Tourism Plan for Launceston for the next 10 year period. Whilst the brief focused on Launceston Local Government Area (LGA) specifically, the implications for the surrounding areas (the Tamar Valley wine region in particular) also needed to be considered.

The project also involved an assessment of the LGA’s provision of visitor information services and resulted in a range of recommendations which provided a larger range of visitors to the LGA access to visitor information.

29 May 2012

The Group worked with an interagency committee comprising Coffs Harbour City Council, Bellingen Shire Council, Nambucca Shire Council, NPWS and Coffs Coast Tourism to develop a robust Nature Tourism Strategy. This strategy aimed to encourage greater partnership and commercial and recreational use of public lands including forests, coastal walk-ways, national parks and wilderness areas, river rafting, scuba diving, canyoning and overnight walks, horse riding and mountain biking ventures.

29 May 2010

The Group project managed the second Sabah State Master Plan. Our work involved managing a team of 15 local researchers and analysts and local consultants. Extensive comparative research was undertaken with surrounding competitor destinations throughout South East Asia. The focus of this 15 year state wide master plan was how to better manage tourism flows and preserve sites and sensitive environmental locations.