John Bates, Keith Baker and Ian Farlow from Tourism NSW looking for opportunities during a swing through western centres.

A REVIEW of outback tourist destinations brought senior Tourism NSW officials to the Ridge on Monday as part of a five day tour of western centres.
John Bates, Keith Baker and Ian Farlow said the aim of the trip - which includes Brewarrina, Bourke, Tilpa, Cobar, Nyngan and Dubbo - was to look a the existing facilities and opportunities for improvement.
“Often a region doesn’t need to build new facilities - just use what they have better,” Mr Baker said.
“Lightning Ridge has a focus on tourism while Walgett is a rural service centre and at the junction of the east-west and north-south land routes,  so the approach is different.
“But we looked at Leisureworld in Walgett which offers a very different experience on the edge of an inland river, and found it is doing well at business and conference tourism.”
NSW  Tourism was looking at how it could help business and tourism associations  to get a better return for their  towns.
Although it made no direct investment, NSW Tourism worked with agencies like the RTA, State Forests, National Parksand Wildlife Service on issues like better signage and town entrances, tourist trails through a region, more training etc.
A classic example was Menindee to Pooncarie  which attracted only adventurous tourists until the road was  sealed.  
“We push to get tourism on the agenda when government priorities are set, so the departments can support tourism and regional development,” Mr Farlow said.
Walgett was “an exceptionally  good shire in terms of its attitude to  tourism,” he said.
The trio were keen to encourage indigenous tourist ventures and a number of meetings had been organised, he said.
“We were to meet Roy at  the keeping place here but we have missed each other,” he said.
“But we will be meeting Barriekneal and other indigenous groups in Bourke.”