In late 2012, the Central West Outback Queensland Tourism Association was successful in receiving funding under the Queensland Government’s Building Rural Communities Fund through Blueprint for the Bush. Funds were used to conduct a planning workshop with 29 tourism stakeholders resulting in the development of the CWOQTA Tourism Development Action Plan. The plan supports the recently developed Tourism Opportunities Plan for Queensland’s Outback, Gulf and Western Downs (TOP) and Drive Tourism Strategy. The plan was released in November 2012.
RAPAD recognized the need to support the implementation of this plan and obtained funding to contract Anita Clark Tourism Services as Project Manager, responsible for the successful completion of the Key Actions for stage one.
In the completion of these actions, consultation and cooperation was sought from a range of industry contacts to include: local tourism operators, Indigenous representatives, Local and regional council tourism officers, CWOQTA, Tourism and Events Queensland, Tourism Australia, Department of National Parks, Recreation, Sport and Racing , tourism distribution partners and industry specialists.
