City of Ballarat, a finalist in the Victorian Tourism Awards 

Ballarat’s efforts to navigate and re-ignite the tourism industry during COVID-19 could be recognised at the Victorian Tourism Awards this week. 

The City of Ballarat’s marketing department is a finalist in the Tourism Marketing & Campaigns category for the BALLARAT, Made of: Ballarat and We Are Ballarat campaigns, while the events department is a finalist in the Festivals and Events category for the 2021 Ballarat Heritage Festival. 

The Victorian Tourism Awards recognise the state’s tourism leaders, with more than 150 entries submitted every year across 31 categories. Winners will be announced during a ceremony at the Melbourne Town Hall on Thursday night.  

The nominations add to a swag of recent accolades for Ballarat in the tourism sector, after taking out top honours at the Victorian Tourism Industry Council’s inaugural Victorian Top Tourism Town Awards in 2021 and making the list of finalists in Australia’s Top Tourism Town competition.  

Ballarat Mayor, Cr Daniel Moloney said the nominations were a recognition of the hard work of many, who battled for Ballarat during one of the city’s toughest challenges.  

“We are proud of our city, proud of the resilience of our tourism industry, and proud of the work these initiatives have delivered to enable Ballarat to start to bounce back,” Cr Moloney said.  

“As a city we have demonstrated optimism, adaptability and innovation – all the ingredients you need to ensure we’re in a strong position to tackle the challenges of a pandemic. 

“Tourism has been one of the hardest hit industries during the pandemic, and while we know there is a way to go before the visitor economy fully recovers, we can be confident there is a great group of people promoting the city, as well as a resilient industry which continues to create new unique experiences for our visitors.” 

The city-wide brandmark BALLARAT was created in 2021 to establish a unified way to sell the city, including the launch of ballarat.com.au – a central site showcasing the city as a place to visit, live, work, invest and study in.  

Simultaneously, the City of Ballarat’s Made of: Ballarat campaign was re-introduced as an invitation to potential visitors to unearth the rich experiences that define the region, while the We Are Ballarat initiative aims to build community pride among residents and grow the visiting friends and visiting relatives’ market – which represents 44.5 per cent of all visitors to the region. 

Recent tourism visitation numbers indicate the campaigns are having an impact. 

In a 10-day period over the Christmas break, a total of 459 groups and 996 individuals visited the Ballarat Information Centre, with 47 per cent of those visitors staying overnight or on longer trips and 37 per cent were on day trips, with the majority from greater Melbourne. 

As well, the Eureka Centre attracted 1524 visitors throughout December 2021, which was up 229 per cent on December 2020. 

The Art Gallery of Ballarat had 12,338 visitors over a 15-day period over December and January, with a daily average of 881. 

This was up 197 per cent on the same timeframe (27 December -10 January) timeframe 12 months earlier. 

In 2021, the Ballarat Heritage Festival was expanded to a 24-day festival for the first time to give people the chance to celebrate being able to come together and experience Ballarat’s unique heritage in a COVID-safe way.  The event was also re-branded to attract new audiences to Ballarat, further strengthening brand Ballarat destination appeal.    

Over the past 18 months, the City of Ballarat has worked together to align on the visitor economy’s strategic direction by developing the Traveller Experience Plan 2021–2030, the Ballarat Events Strategy 2018–2028, the Visitor Economy Strategy 2021–2024 and the Destination Marketing Plan 2021-24 – which will be presented for adoption at the February 23 Ballarat City Council Meeting.