A private island holiday stay in Eyre Peninsula, a hands-on nature-based experience in the Riverland, an immersive foraging tour in the Limestone Coast, and other innovative visitor offerings across the state will become a reality as a result of a new tourism development program.
Expressions of interest for the second intake of the South Australian Tourism Commission's Experience Development Program (EDP) open today, following a successful pilot program.
Launched in May 2024, the EDP provides tourism businesses with the tools needed to deliver world class tourism offerings across South Australia.
The program is open to both new and established tourism businesses with a new and innovative product or experience idea, for example sensory food and drink tasting experiences, on-farm paddock to plate experiences or Aboriginal food foraging and cultural tours.
Tourism operators are invited to participate in the second intake via an expression of interest process which is open from 2 to 20 September 2024. Places are available for up to 20 operators from across the state.
The EDP supports businesses which are committed to investing further in tourism activity such as developing innovative bookable experiences, attending tourism industry events, and marketing their tourism offerings.
With a focus on small group, peer-to-peer learning, the program consists of three modules: developing your tourism product, selling your product, and perfecting your pitch.
By the end of the program, tourism businesses have a fully developed new experience concept and a clear understanding of how to market and sell it through the tourism trade distribution system.
The pilot program received overwhelming positive feedback from the 18 tourism businesses which took part.
Participating operators reported that the peer-to-peer learning aspect was valuable, giving them the opportunity to learn from each other and form new business relationships and collaborative partnerships.
Each business that took part in the pilot has completed the program with a clear plan to take their idea to market. This means there is a pipeline of 18 new tourism experiences which are expected to come online in the short, medium and longer term to entice visitors.
