Adventure tourism is emerging as a significant contributor to Western Australia’s events calendar and to the state’s tourism operators. Russell Quinn reports.
THE term 'adventure tourism' is used to describe anything exciting or adventurous, an event or an experience that attracts visitors.
Whether it's an iconic local event, such as the Rottnest Channel Swim, or something a little more daring such as the Quit Forest Rally, the state's tourism events calendar is attracting ever-more exciting adventure events.
Eventscorp, a division of Tourism Western Australia, is responsible for bringing sporting, artistic and activity based events to the state in order to enhance WA's vibrancy, increase tourism and, critically, get a return on the investment made to secure the event.
Adventure tourism events on the WA calendar include the Australasian Safari, an eight-day off-road endurance race known as the 'Dakar Down Under', and the Ironman Western Australia Triathalon, which is a qualifying event for the world's pinnacle event, Ironman Hawaii.
Eventscorp executive director David van Ooran defines adventure tourism more broadly as a multi-faceted range of activities and experiences, but admits many of the participants in these adventure events are extremely enthusiastic.
"It's important these adventure tourism events are accessible so you don't have to be the leading athlete in the Southern Hemisphere to enjoy or participate, you just have to be very adventurous," Mr van Ooran told Business Class.
Selecting exactly which events to host in WA is a difficult task, but Eventscorp is guided by Tourism WA's brand and the agency's five iconic WA experiences, including outback adventure, and forests and wildflowers.
"There's about 14 or 15 criteria we look at but it boils down to essentially two, then one," Mr van Ooran said.
"An event has to deliver strong tourism outcomes - that's the top-line position.
"Underneath that, it has to be significant enough or prestigious enough that the event will drive people to get on a plane and come and visit the state for the event; so it has to drive visitation to the state, and have an economic impact.
"Or secondly, it has to be picked up and broadcast nationally or internationally.
"It has to have strong economic impact or strong media impact or a combination of the two. The Ironman Western Australia is a classic - it brings heaps of people in and gets broadcast nationally and internationally.
"Ironman Western Australia currently costs us in the vicinity of half a million dollars and returns $6 million in economic impact plus that media impact."
EventsCorp estimates that about 2,200 people come specifically into the state for the event, staying more than 20,000 visitor nights, bringing with them about 20 accredited international media organisations, and generating 41 hours of television coverage.
Mr van Ooran said adventure tourism, coupled with WA's nature-based tourism, was a key attractor and a unique attribute for WA.
"You'll see that in a lot of Tourism WA marketing and publicity, we are really trying to leverage off that, that whole big outback adventure experience is really important," he said.
"Things like Australasian Safari are a perfect fit for us and the brand and that's why we're interested, because it showcases the outback adventure experience beautifully through the television broadcast it generates, which is then distributed almost globally into all our key tourism markets."
More than 2,000 people are directly exposed to the Safari, staying about 6,700 visitor nights in WA. However the 30 accredited media, hours of television coverage and the $1.9 million economic impact are the real reasons for hosting the event.
"But then the other experiences like diving with whale sharks, while you don't have to be an athlete it's still high adventure out there in the ocean, where you can't see the bottom, and snorkelling and scuba diving with those guys," Mr van Ooran said.
Other adventure tourism events include the recently held national BMX championships in the Swan Valley, which generated an estimated $1.8 million from a $50,000 investment.
And November's Anaconda Adventure Race in Dunsborough, which is considered the largest adventure race of its kind in the world, includes a swim, run, paddle and mountain bike ride, delivering $2.5 million to the state from an investment of $25,000 through the Eventscorp's regional event scheme.
An independent adventure event later this month is the Brownes UrbanMax Adventure Race.
Maximum Adventure operations manager Henry van Heerden has been hosting these challenging foot races through Australia's capital cities for the past five years, and has seen the whole industry grow from its infancy.
"In the last three or four years it's grown about 200 or 300 per cent, it's massive," Mr van Heerden told Business Class.
"Across the board our revenue has tripled in the last three years."
