Western Harbour has groundbreaking plans to attract 2 billion tourists a year
Free ferry services, food festivals, drone shows and a surge in tourism revenue are part of groundbreaking plans to turn Sydney’s Western Harbour into “the world’s best waterfront”.
NSW
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Free ferry services, food festivals, drone shows and a surge in tourism revenue are part of groundbreaking plans to turn Sydney’s Western Harbour into “the world’s best waterfront”.
Bordered by Walsh Bay, Darling Harbour, Pyrmont and the Sydney Fish Market, Western Harbour lays claim to being the city’s leading tourism and entertainment district with around 1000 businesses packing 7km of harbourfront foreshore.
There are 15 hotels with 4500 rooms across the precinct, 400 restaurants, cafes and retail outlets, 11 live entertainment venues, 10 arts and cultural centres, finance and professional services firms and myriad other large-scale organisations.
The area also houses more than 50,000 workers and high-density residential.
Now, in following the lead of the West End in London, New York’s Times Square and Singapore’s Marina Bay, Western Harbour companies will vote on whether to fund and install an organisation solely focused on strengthening the precinct as an attraction for people to visit, work and live.
It could lead to the introduction of a free ferry between Pyrmont and Barangaroo, regular seafood festivals to showcase a new world-class Fish Market, better collaboration with citywide events such as Vivid, and a steady stream of Instagram moments by creating water, laser and drone shows.
Under a draft proposal from a firm already working with businesses in the area, the collective approach to promote and market the precinct would drive the international tourism spend from $884m in 2024 to a projected $2bn by 2030.
Annual visitation is forecast to climb from 94 million to 110 million.
A reveal of the plans follows NSW legislation last week giving the green light to forming Community Improvement Districts (CIDs), where all businesses within a specific geography enter an agreement to fund initiatives aimed at delivering economic benefits across the board.
Support from two-thirds of individual businesses in a precinct is required to create a CID.
In the Western Harbour area, New Sydney Waterfront Company (NSWC) is finalising a proposal for businesses to consider. They are expected to vote on it before the end of the year.
NSWC chairman Geoff Parmenter said the company – established to work exclusively in the Western Harbour precinct and with a board drawn from major businesses in the area – has recently been running a small pilot program with approximately 50 organisations.
“When we started out nobody could tell you how many people were coming, where they were coming from, what they were doing when they were here, or what they thought of the place,” he said. “We’ve helped them understand all that through data insights.
“But while data is important it’s what you use it for that counts. We want to see Sydney’s Western Harbour working as hard for this city as Marina Bay does for Singapore. Our vision is for this to be the world’s best waterfront.”
Parmenter said NSWC will seek to secure $4.25m a year for five years to fund event activations and data analysis, to improve connectivity across the precinct and develop whole-of-area marketing programs.
“Then you live or die by the value you deliver,” he said.
Restaurateur Garry Simonian has seven venues in the precinct and wants a CID established.
“We’re part of the best city in the world, the best harbour in the world,” he said. “But what’s the point without activity, excitement and buzz. Individually as businesses we can’t organise all that.
“We need a collaborative approach. Give Sydneysiders and tourists a reason to come. Let’s have those Instagram moments. You’ve also got tourists wandering Circular Quay and George St who don’t even know there’s a beautiful Darling Harbour close by.
“Connectivity is important too. People coming from Pyrmont to here by car – it’s a disaster. Let them jump on a ferry.”
Stephen Xu runs the Gelatissimo at Darling Harbour and says, without activations to drive visitation, the area suffers. He cited the cancellation of the fireworks for four weeks earlier this year.
“Our revenues dropped 20 per cent,” he said. “We were struggling. When the fireworks returned, so did our customers.”
Transport, Music and Night-Time Economy Minister John Graham said: “The western harbourfront has so much potential to transform from the patchwork of the past to a joined up cultural and entertainment precinct”.
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Originally published as Western Harbour has groundbreaking plans to attract 2 billion tourists a year
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