Community + Visitor Economy

Bathurst's draft tourism strategy targets $400,000 in Mount Panorama venue hire by 2035, from $20,000 in 2025. Submissions close 15 October

Bathurst Regional Council's draft Destination and Events Strategy 2035 is open for comment until 4.30pm on Thursday 15 October. Its 2035 targets include $518 million in visitor spending, against a stated 2025 baseline of $305.1 million; 50,000 international visitors, against 7,000 in 2024; and $400,000 in Mount Panorama/Wahluu venue hire, against $20,000 in 2025 outside race periods. On 16 September councillors voted 9-0 to exhibit it and to Adopt the Bathurst Destination and Events Strategy 2035 if no submission/s are received during the public exhibition period.

7 October 2026 3 primary sources, read 7 Oct 2026

How to have a say, and what happens if nobody does

The council's YourSay page says Submission close 4.30pm Thursday 15 October 2026. Feedback can go through the form on that page, by email to council@bathurst.nsw.gov.au, or by post to The General Manager, Bathurst Regional Council, PMB 17, Bathurst NSW 2795. The 52-page draft is in the page's document library, and the council says it can also be reviewed at the Bathurst Visitor Information Centre, Bathurst Library and the Civic Centre.

The resolution, ORD2026-260, has three working parts: exhibit the draft for the statutory 28 days; adopt it if no submissions arrive; and, if submissions do arrive, review and amend the Bathurst Destination and Events Strategy 2035 where required, prior to adoption. All nine councillors voted for it. So a single submission is what sends the draft back for review before adoption; with none, the exhibited text becomes the strategy.

It follows the 2019 Destination Management Plan, and the council report says this is the first time tourism and events have been brought into one strategy. The draft itself records 23 public responses to an earlier Have Your Say survey during its preparation.

The 2035 targets

The draft's table of indicators, which it calls the 2035 opportunity, gives each one a baseline, a target and a data source. These are the ones with a number at both ends, as the draft states them:

Elsewhere the draft adds a target of 1.75 million total visitor nights, against 1,109,000 on its summary page. By our arithmetic, the $518 million target is about 70 per cent above the $305.1 million baseline, venue hire at Mount Panorama would rise twenty-fold, the grants and investment target is more than 21 times the 2025/26 grants figure, and international visitors would grow a little over seven-fold.

The draft does not attach dollar costs to its actions. Its events chapter splits the council's events budget by role in percentages only (15% lead, 15% partner, 30% attract, 25% support, 15% leverage), and the council report says Ongoing implementation of the Action Plan will be included in future draft budgets for consideration by Council.

What the draft says is holding Bathurst back

The draft is candid about the gaps. Its list includes Council must tighten its budget., which sits beside the financial sustainability review we covered in our report on the July meeting. On perception it says High awareness but low appeal, meaning Bathurst is not converting visitation, and on the track it says that under current state legislation there can only be five full closures of the track at Mount Panorama/Wahluu each year. It also names Great Western Highway access, reduced and unreliable regional flights, a housing shortage that limits staff, declining event volunteers, and no publicly recognised sustainably certified tourism businesses in the region.

Its answer for the mountain is to Create a funding pool from Mount Panorama/Wahluu income to support the incubation of new events, growth of community events, and to attract commercial event professionals, alongside positioning it as an international events precinct and improving its business event facilities. For the council's own role, it proposes a shift from being primarily a deliverer of events to being a strategic enabler, a single visitor economy unit bringing the tourism and events teams together, a steering committee of council, industry and partners, and a winter arts festival concept.

Two baselines the draft does not reconcile

The draft's summary page gives total visitor spend of $337m, with 1,008,000 visitors and 1,109,000 nights, citing Tourism Research Australia. Those are the same three figures Tourism Research Australia's profile gives for Bathurst as a 2023 to 2024 two-year average, as we reported in our four-council visitor comparison. The targets table on page 22 uses $305.1 million (2025) as the expenditure baseline. The draft does not explain the difference. Measured from $337m, the $518 million target is about 54 per cent higher rather than 70.

Overnight visitors differ too: the summary page gives 439,000 domestic overnight visitors, while the targets table gives 396,000 overnight visitors in all. And the readiness row lists 35 export-ready businesses as the baseline and 12 as the 2035 target, a target below its starting point; the pillar summary repeats 12 export-ready businesses as an outcome.

Our view, labelled as such. A strategy that will be measured against its own numbers for a decade should settle which number it is measured from before it is adopted. Because the resolution adopts the exhibited text if nobody writes in, the exhibition is the cheapest point at which to fix it. On our arithmetic, $305.1 million growing at the stated 4.9 per cent a year for ten years reaches about $492 million, not $518 million; reaching $518 million in ten years takes about 5.4 per cent a year. Which baseline, which year, and whether the export-ready target is meant to be higher are questions the draft can answer before it becomes the plan.

Run a tourism business or an event in the Bathurst region, or read the draft differently? Tell us and we will check it against the documents and log the outcome here.