OPINION: Let's enhance the visitor experience

WE SHOULD put out the welcome mat instead of hurling abuse to international tourists who visit Grafton for the Jacaranda Festival.

Grafton's Jacarandas have been popular with Asian visitors to Grafton responding to the Clarence Valley Council's social media campaing. Picture: Tim Howard

"GET off the road! It's a road, not a f***** footpath!"

These words ring through the air and disrupt my otherwise peaceful Saturday morning with my daughter.

It doesn't set a very good example for her, let alone the hundreds of tourists targeted by this type of abuse throughout the Jacaranda Festival.

A talking point throughout this year's festival has been the increasing presence of camera-clad visitors, mostly from Asian countries, who are particularly brazen when it comes to venturing onto busy roads to snap that perfect photograph.

It's not their fault that their cultures happen to have a more cautious approach to driving allowing pedestrians right of passage.

But the abrasive yobbo reaction from passing motorists is not the type of impression of Australians for these travellers to take home that makes me proud of where I come from.

It also doesn't help the marketing aspect of our festival, which is reaching a wider international market every year and has the potential to become a seriously big deal.

To properly cater for these visitors we need to do more than add road safety messages to the promotional material.

We need language-appropriate signage (I Scream have already got the ball rolling on that one), and schools need to look long term when deciding what Asian language to offer students. Here is a rare opportunity for a second language to actually be useful in our own patch. A huge opportunity exists for school leavers to enhance the visitor experience as tour guides along Jacaranda Avenue and Turf St- as you would find in other major tourist centres across the world.

Originally published as OPINION: Let's enhance the visitor experience