RIVERINA Businesses are stepping up their offerings to boost the region's tourism with the help of the Tourism Accelerator Program.
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The program, run in conjunction with Destination Riverina Murray and Regional Development Australia, saw a number of tourism-focused businesses analyse their potential.
The Temora Aviation Museum was one business who took part in the program and general manager Peter Harper said it was a unique experience.
"The program does something most organisations or businesses don't do, which is taking a step back and getting that helicopter view of the business to collect data, see what can improve and find strategies on how to implement those improvements," he said.
"Then there were very skilled mentors to help us pull it all together."
As a result of the program, Mr Harper said he had already taken action to improve the museum.
"We identified eight opportunities for our business, some of which were much larger and required a lot of capital investment which takes money and time, but we chose three immediately which were small investments with great opportunities for increased revenue," he said.
"We've rolled one out already which is up and running and two others are in the process, we're in the thick of rolling them out."
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Mr Harper said the key to the program's success was an action-based approach.
"Putting it into practice is a big part, not just theory-based, which is great of the program seeing as most of these sorts of workshops are just about theoretical learning," he said.
Another Riverina business who took part in the program was the Ariah Park Hotel, and owner Jacqui Collins said it benefited her greatly as someone new to the business.
"I've owned the hotel for about 17 months now, and the program was fantastic for me in terms of getting a real hold on the financial forecasting over the next few years," she said.
"We've just been riding the wave and avoiding the future plans so it has been great to get on top of everything."
Ms Collins said they now had a focused plan on where to take the business into the future.
"We bought the business and building with no customers really, the accommodation was not adequate, it was pretty run down and old, so we are focused now on building up the accommodation and events side of things, taking care of locals who are loyal but also bringing new people in," she said.
"It's been wonderful moving into the Riverina."
Other Riverina businesses who participated included Charles Sturt Suites and Apartments and the Tumut River Brewing Co.
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