At Sparrowly Group creating strong and connected industries and people is part of who we are. We believe that sharing collective knowledge is key to helping everyone and every place thrive. Over the past month or so the team has been out and about gathering and sharing knowledge across a number of industries including the Visitor Economy, Economic and Workforce development.  

Beyond sharing our knowledge, we also value the opportunity to learn from our peers. Here are our key takeaways.

You probably know or have lived this scenario - you need to develop a Destination Management Plan or a Visitor Strategy and you need data to understand what's been happening or to know where your destination has come from. If you work in destination management, data is the one area that we all know we need to do better and be better at collecting, tracking, analysing it and reporting on it. When we don’t measure, reflect and act, it’s difficult to tell a comprehensive story to inform stakeholders and build true advocacy and partnerships with them.

The nexus of workforce development, the visitor economy, economic development, and community development is a powerful one. They aren’t isolated efforts but interconnected pillars that support thriving communities and robust economies. And, if we really want to support thriving communities and economies, we need to stop working in silos. But why does Australia and the organisations and budgets that support these sectors still work in silos? Why aren’t we working all hands together?

The arts, culture and creative industries sector in NSW has the largest creative workforce in Australia. The creative industries are an important part of the economy, accounting for a fifth of services exports and 10% of the state’s workforce and with great potential to grow. Australia is facing a big issue with our creative trade – for every dollar we make by selling creative stuff, we end up spending eight dollars on importing similar things. This deficit shows the potential growth that the arts, culture, and creative industries could have to bring in a lot more money and boost our economy as well as the profile of the sector. To support this growth opportunity, the 'Creative Communities Policy was introduced by the NSW Government late last year to maximise the opportunity this sector presents and enhance the cultural and creative sectors. Sparrowly Group’s Justine Sinclair provides a practical framework for realising the opportunities of this policy.

Discussions of whether or not one type of impact analysis - economic, social, or environmental - deserve precedence over the other are ill-founded and miss the fact that all three are necessary to inform good decision making and each other.

That said, economic analysis carries obvious advantages, being a robust way to weigh the impacts between different physical, financial, and subjective intangible effects for individual people, and then weight the balance of those effects between people. That dollars are only a convenient, but arbitrary, yardstick of relative preferences and therefore well-being is aside to the actual aims of economic analysis. Albeit one often poorly explained by economists, and therefore, commonly misunderstood by non-economists through no fault of their own.

Sparowly Group’s Senior Economist, Sam Miller provides a explainer to help demystify misperceptions.

The team at Sparrowly Group has witnessed travel trends come and go over the years some of which become mainstays. As we move into a new year, there are three key areas we recommend incorporating into your destination and business planning.  

While these travel behaviours are not the first to evolve and won’t be the last. What’s important is to be forward thinking, know your customer, understand their needs and listen to their feedback.

By making this an always on mindset in your destination development and experience design, you won’t need to wait to learn what the trends are…you will set the trend.

The ethical consumer demonstrates a shift in priorities in favour of purchasing from organisations that prioritise transparency and sustainability. Learning how to service this consumer will have lasting benefits for your business and the community in which you operate.