The head of Grampians Tourism says the state government needs to make it easier for private enterprise to invest in the region's visitor hotspots.
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It follows a state government forum in Horsham last week, where tourism bodies, councils, hospitality and accommodation businesses gathered at the Grains Innovation Park to discuss the future of the region's visitor economy.
Grampians Tourism chief executive Marc Sleeman said government roadblocks and improving the activities on offer for visitors were highlighted as key challenges.
"There is a 21-year lease in national parks for private investment," he said.
"We need to look at relaxing regulations around lease periods to encourage private investment in the tourism offering - that includes more accommodation and attractions to support the visitor economy.
"We're only going to get increased length of stay in the region and increased spend if we have great product to talk about and sell."
The state government is hosting industry conversations across the state.
Wednesday night's event in Horsham came in the wake of new figures that show while visitor numbers to the Wimmera are increasing, they are spending less per person.
Mr Sleeman said a more co-ordinated approach to marketing was one solution.
"We already promote and talk about the Silo Art Trail and Pink Lake, but visitors don't see boundaries," he said. "There are 800 businesses in the visitor economy in the Grampians region, and if we all go off and spend little bits of money everywhere, we will have no major impact in our target markets. We need to unite our region under a single campaign and brand."
The Grampians region includes the Horsham, Northern Grampians, Southern Grampians and Ararat municipalities.
Stephen Vines, co-owner of Dadswells Bridge's Grampians Edge Caravan Park, also attended the forum. He said the state government could improve communication with tourism businesses.
"The biggest thing to come out of it was the rock-climbing ban - how it's affecting the Horsham and Northern Grampians tourism industry," he said.
"We've tried to send phone calls and emails to Parks Victoria, and no one's actually getting back to us and explaining what's happening, so we can't take the next step in investing in the caravan park.
"We've invested in advertising in Hong Kong and Singapore because that's where a lot of our climbing market is from. We also hire out climbing gear and guidebooks, and now it's just sitting idle because we're not getting the climbers coming.
"There's no defined person or group you can go to if you have little issues or inquiries about running tourism businesses, you don't know who to go to for help."
Climbing has been off-limits in eight areas of the Grampians since early this year, when Parks Victoria started heavily enforcing restrictions following concerns climbing was affecting Indigenous rock art sites.
Mr Vines took over the caravan park with his partner Jennifer at the start of 2017. He said the talks also covered how to rectify the climbing issue.
"It will be interesting to see what comes of this," he said.
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