Cycle Tourism

What is Cycle Tourism?

How can it benefit our community?

What is Cycle Tourism?

Cycle tourism comes in many forms from:

-participants in events e.g. Tour Down Under

- cycling event spectators

- cyclists travelling solo from point to point – cycle tourers

- riding on trails e.g. the Riesling Trail in South Australia

- hiring bicycles to navigate through a new city/town

What is a Cycle Tourist?A participant or spectator in a cycling related activity that includes an overnight stay or a day trip, which is more than 50kms outside their usual place of residence. Cycle Tourism Australia, 2008

Benefits of Cycle Tourism

Cycling ticks all the boxes in the triple bottom line offering a diverse range of benefits in the following sectors:

•Environmental

•Social/Cultural

•Economic

Environmental

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•Provides opportunities to experience natural and cultural environments

•Promotes the protection of the local environment

•Helps provide educational and interpretative opportunities and increase environmental awareness and appreciation

•Well connected trail networks can decrease the use of motorised vehicles for transportation and recreation, therefore reduction the production of emissions that cause global warming

•Provide an opportunity for community participation in conservation and revegetation work

• Causes no noise or visual pollution

•Ecologically sustainable form of tourism and can even be used to educate people further on their natural environment by ‘getting out amongst it’

•Trail networks increase community ownership and assist to preserve ownership and assist to preserve natural and cultural values

Environmental

Source: Urban & Regional Planning Solutions, Sustainable Recreational Trails – Guidelines for Planning, Design, Construction and Maintenance of Recreational Trails in South Australia, May 2007, Adelaide.

Social/Cultural•Participation in cycle activities improves physical and mental health thus reducing several health problems including obesity, hypertension, depression and anxiety

•Cycle trails facilitate participation between a diverse range of community members – age groups, individuals, families

•Participation in cycling related activities is can be low cost

•Trails help to connect people and places

• Assists with social interaction

• Encourages people to try new recreational activities

• Aesthetic appreciation, sense of achievement, sense of pride and community identity, bringing ‘new faces’ into small rural communities, enhancing social interaction (Faulkes, P. Ritche B, Fulker M 2006, p.13)

Economic

•Cycle Tourism product generates intra and interstate and overseas tourism spending

•Cycle Tourism product supports and enhances local business opportunities

•Trail visitor spend money in towns and communities along or near trails

•Cycle Tourism product users spend money preparing for their trail experience or recreation activity

•Cycle Tourism product construction and maintenance can generate employment opportunities

•Participation in trail activities improves community health and reduces health expenditure

Economic•It is estimated the Murray to Mountain Rail Trail in Victoria generates $2 million a year in the regional community

•Cycle tourism is small scale and able to provide local ownership of facilities and resources

•Unlike tourists travelling by bus or car, studies have shown cycle tourists are required to travel light, making them more heavily reliant on local services. Studies show that cycle tourists tend to stay longer in towns ‘linger longer’

•The 2008 Tour Down Under contributed $17.3 million boost to the State's economy - a 50.4% increase from 2007

•15,100 event specific visitors from interstate and overseas who stayed 140,500 nights - a 37.7% increase from 2007

Where to from here?•Form a committee of management to undertake the following activities;

•Decide what type of cycle tourism experience your region could offer a cycle tourists

•Start the process by utilizing the Regional Suitability Tool Kit contained within the Cycle Tourism Australia Cycle Tourism Resource Kit

•If you decide to proceed….get the Money: Build it, market it, maintain it, develop it, market it, maintain it, evaluate / review / enhance / improve