Mr ELFERINK - 1998-02-26
The award-winning Alice Springs Desert Park celebrates its first anniversary next month. Can the minister advise members of some of the highlights the park has enjoyed over the last year?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I take pleasure in pointing out some of the highlights of the park since its opening last year. I can confidently say that the park is outstripping all expectations. In visitation, the park is continuing to perform strongly. It has had over 58 500 visitors since it opened. This is a remarkable achievement, given that this is a new product on the national and international markets.
Visitor surveys are showing that people are staying at the park for more than 3 hours and many are remaining for most of the day. This is translating into extra visitor-night stays in Alice Springs which is part of the reason the park was established. It is good to see the park developing in that way. In fact, inbound booking agents are beginning to suggest to their clients that they spend less time in other states when they are on a round-Australia trip, and spend more time at the Desert Park. We can expect therefore to see an increase in tourist numbers as industry operators promote the park more, particularly as they could not change their itineraries for last season but are beginning to now for the 1998-99 season. These include companies such as Brits Australia and Australian Pacific.
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The park has been a success also with schools, with more than 125 school groups visiting from all over the Territory. There have been 40 groups from interstate schools and school bookings for this coming year are looking very strong. The Alice Springs community has welcomed the park. About 700 season passes have been purchased, predominantly by local people, and a Friends of the Desert Park group has just held its inaugural annual general meeting ...
Ms Martin: What about the Charles Darwin park? When are you going to open the gates?
Mr BALDWIN: I am talking about Desert Park. If you want to ask a question about another park, ask it. I am answering a question about Desert Park. Some Territorians, particularly Centralians, are probably interested.
Desert Park is receiving many accolades. The park construction project recently won the 1997 Territory and national categories of the Case Earth awards. The park has been invited to nominate for the Brolga Awards in the category of tourism development projects, as well as the national Banksia Awards. The organisation that designed the park's nature theatre is considering entering this unusual and very interesting feature in the national architectural awards. Last year, the Desert Park's masterplan received the judge's special acknowledgement award from the Queensland chapter of the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects, to add to awards previously bestowed by the Royal Australian Planning Institute and the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects. This comes on top of glowing accolades by world-renowned naturalist and film-maker Sir David Attenborough who announced, after a visit last year, that the park was 'unsurpassable and absolutely breathtaking'.
This park is the first facility of its kind planned and developed from the ground up on a 'bio-park' principle - that is, presenting plants and animals on an integrated basis. This approach has generated considerable interest interstate, and many international inquiries.
As the member for MacDonnell said, the park will be celebrating its first anniversary on 22 March. A family fun day is organised, with events including extra zoological displays, botanical displays, bush tucker displays, colouring-in competitions for children, face painting and all those sorts of things. I recommend to anybody who has not already been to the park this opportunity to take part in the first anniversary of that great asset. Members on this side are very proud of the performance of Desert Park. It is making a valuable contribution already to conservation and education on the desert environment. Certainly, visitor appreciation is very high. I commend the staff there for doing a great job and look forward to the park's first anniversary.
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ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I take pleasure in pointing out some of the highlights of the park since its opening last year. I can confidently say that the park is outstripping all expectations. In visitation, the park is continuing to perform strongly. It has had over 58 500 visitors since it opened. This is a remarkable achievement, given that this is a new product on the national and international markets.
Visitor surveys are showing that people are staying at the park for more than 3 hours and many are remaining for most of the day. This is translating into extra visitor-night stays in Alice Springs which is part of the reason the park was established. It is good to see the park developing in that way. In fact, inbound booking agents are beginning to suggest to their clients that they spend less time in other states when they are on a round-Australia trip, and spend more time at the Desert Park. We can expect therefore to see an increase in tourist numbers as industry operators promote the park more, particularly as they could not change their itineraries for last season but are beginning to now for the 1998-99 season. These include companies such as Brits Australia and Australian Pacific.
Page 12
The park has been a success also with schools, with more than 125 school groups visiting from all over the Territory. There have been 40 groups from interstate schools and school bookings for this coming year are looking very strong. The Alice Springs community has welcomed the park. About 700 season passes have been purchased, predominantly by local people, and a Friends of the Desert Park group has just held its inaugural annual general meeting ...
Ms Martin: What about the Charles Darwin park? When are you going to open the gates?
Mr BALDWIN: I am talking about Desert Park. If you want to ask a question about another park, ask it. I am answering a question about Desert Park. Some Territorians, particularly Centralians, are probably interested.
Desert Park is receiving many accolades. The park construction project recently won the 1997 Territory and national categories of the Case Earth awards. The park has been invited to nominate for the Brolga Awards in the category of tourism development projects, as well as the national Banksia Awards. The organisation that designed the park's nature theatre is considering entering this unusual and very interesting feature in the national architectural awards. Last year, the Desert Park's masterplan received the judge's special acknowledgement award from the Queensland chapter of the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects, to add to awards previously bestowed by the Royal Australian Planning Institute and the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects. This comes on top of glowing accolades by world-renowned naturalist and film-maker Sir David Attenborough who announced, after a visit last year, that the park was 'unsurpassable and absolutely breathtaking'.
This park is the first facility of its kind planned and developed from the ground up on a 'bio-park' principle - that is, presenting plants and animals on an integrated basis. This approach has generated considerable interest interstate, and many international inquiries.
As the member for MacDonnell said, the park will be celebrating its first anniversary on 22 March. A family fun day is organised, with events including extra zoological displays, botanical displays, bush tucker displays, colouring-in competitions for children, face painting and all those sorts of things. I recommend to anybody who has not already been to the park this opportunity to take part in the first anniversary of that great asset. Members on this side are very proud of the performance of Desert Park. It is making a valuable contribution already to conservation and education on the desert environment. Certainly, visitor appreciation is very high. I commend the staff there for doing a great job and look forward to the park's first anniversary.
Page 13
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016