WESTERN AUSTRALIA NEEDS AN ICON

In 2018, Associate Professor Jianhong (Cecilia Zia) from Curtin University authored a report – Are We China Ready? Chinese Tourism in WA. Part of the report was a workshop at Curtin University with a panel of tourism leaders.  Several had spoken to people in China and asked have you been to Western Australia? Those who had not were asked why?  The majority responded with “what do you have there? You don’t have any icons for us to visit.”

Competition to attract visitors of all types, post COVID is today fierce. Tourism icons play an important role in attracting visitors to any destination. They serve as a visual representation of what makes a place unique and memorable, communicating a sense of place, culture and identity. Tourists find them fascinating because they are the only one of a kind in the world. Think the Grand Canyon, Eiffel Tower, Machu Picchu, Sydney Opera House or Great Barrier Reef.

For Tourists looking to travel overseas, what would stop them in their tracks while researching where to go and make them want to come to Western Australia? Our natural marine life including Whale Sharks is unique. Imagine an Asian visitor who cannot swim being able to venture into the body of a giant Whale with the largest underwater viewing window in the world?

AUSTRALIAN UNDERWATER DISCOVERY CENTRE – 
where science and tourism collide

In the shape of a giant Cetacean, the AUDC will bring nearly 500,000 new visitors to Western Australia because of its unique form and function. It will entertain tourists, but it will also educate them about the importance of keeping our oceans clean and what unique properties our marine life have that are on the brink of curing life threatening diseases. Busselton Jetty’s team has won numerous awards including its Marine Biologists, the United Nations Award for Pile Rehabilitation, propagating soft invertebrates on man-made pylons, which has been lauded world-wide and now emulated.

The AUDC design is ready to go. It will create 254 jobs. It will help disperse high yield international travellers to stay longer in WA. It will draw tourists from Sydney and Melbourne with assistance from direct flights to Busselton. And it will be very Instagramable with underwater weddings and functions like no other. It meets all of the Government economic, environmental and tourism strategy document outcomes. It just needs funding.