Steve Price: Besides sports events, Melbourne has nothing to offer tourists, so why would they come?

Unless they like industrial views, why would tourists ride the Melbourne Eye? In fact, why would they even visit our lacklustre city?

Steve Price

@StevePriceMedia

4 min read

January 13, 2023 - 2:30PM

The Melbourne Eyesore is a metaphor for our city itself, which shouldn’t even try to market itself on looks.

Opinion

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Driving over the Bolte Bridge into Melbourne returning from a trip to New Zealand it sits there like a curse for our city — the Melbourne Eye.

It’s an estimated $100m disaster that should be renamed the Melbourne Eyesore.

Opened in 2008 — and called Southern Star — it was always in the wrong place unless of course you wanted a birds-eye view of a container port or Coode Island’s old chemical storage facility.

The Eye is a metaphor for what’s wrong with the City of Melbourne and its ability to attract and hold tourists. Melbourne cannot and should have never tried to sell itself on what it looks like.

As we emerge from the two horrible years of Covid and the world’s longest and toughest lockdowns we all need to ask the question: why would you want to come to Melbourne as a tourist?

Melbourne cannot and should have never tried to sell itself on what it looks like. Picture: Mark Stewart

One obvious answer will of course begin at the Rod Laver arena on Monday when the best tennis players in the world compete in the tennis calendar’s first grand slam of the year.

One of only four – Paris, Wimbledon and New York the others – it’s the jewel in our sporting calendar. A magnificent fortnight of professional sport combined with an entertainment precinct of food and drink. The Oz Open is an event to be treasured and must be retained at whatever cost.

Then at the end of March we will stage another global event, the Formula 1 Grand Prix that attracted record crowds last year and is a near sellout this year.

Another – albeit expensive – must-hang-on-to global sports treasure.

Add the Melbourne Cup Carnival —— increasingly under attack from Sydney and its big money races — and that’s really it.

Tennis, motor racing and horse races spread out over 11 months though isn’t enough to attract big tourist numbers in a competitive tourism market in a nation that has Sydney Harbour, the Great Barrier Reef and Uluru.

Now already I can predict the Twitter response to this argument from former Victorian Tourism Minister Martin Pakula.

He’s gone but still believes, I am sure, that he left tourism in Victoria in good hands for his successor.

The F1 Grand Prix is one tourist drawcard for the city but there’s not many more. Picture: Getty

He didn’t. The new minister — who most of us have never heard of — is Steve Dimopoulos, who is also in charge of sport and major events. What a gig!

What Steve needs to ask himself, on behalf of everyone in Victoria who benefits from inbound foreign tourism and tourists from interstate is this: why would you as a tourist choose Melbourne as a destination outside those major events?

The key to that question is Melbourne,not Victoria.

We are not talking about the Great Ocean Road or the Phillip Island penguins or the Mornington Peninsula wineries and golf courses, we are talking just Melbourne the city.

Google what to do in Melbourne and it spits out these tips in order – the Melbourne Zoo, Skydeck and then the 12 Apostles.

As an international or interstate tourist, does a visit to the Melbourne Zoo, or the top of a not particularly high building really grab you?

Of course not.

Melbourne has been lazily promoting itself on the back of sport, theatre and shopping for decades.

Sadly, Covid killed the shopping part of that list just take a walk down the Toorak Rd end of Chapel St if you don’t believe me.

As for the CBD we know that’s now a graffiti-ridden mess of bike lanes, construction zones for government projects and homeless people.

Melbourne as a tourist destination desperately needs a makeover and it’s urgent. We are simply falling behind not just the rest of Australia but in our region.

I’ve just spent a glorious seven days on the South Island of New Zealand around Queenstown.

It’s just a two-and-a-half hour direct flight from Australia, and sure, it’s natural beauty is hard to compete with, but New Zealanders try real hard to make sure there is something for everyone.

Kiwis know how to do tourism right. Picture: Supplied

Melbourne needs to get more exciting as a tourist destination.

Take the mighty MCG as an example. Back in 2017 a great idea was left to die when a cross stadium zip line and rooftop grandstand walk idea was shelved.

Instead, you can follow an elderly gentleman in a blazer on. a walking tour. Get real people - that’s not exciting anyone.

Find a way to bring back the original idea because even Adelaide Oval has worked out the rooftop walk.

We know the Yarra River is a brown drain but it’s our brown drain. Let’s finally build a swimming pool and beach club on top of the river at Southbank and rejuvenate what’s become a tired precinct.

Move the Eye-Sore to St Kilda Beach and combine it with an exciting complex offering jet boat rides and paragliding out of St Kilda marina on the bay and build a giant bungy jump allowing you to dip your head in the ocean.

International tourists will be disappointed when they find out how far away the 12 Apostles really are from Melbourne. Picture: Supplied

Bike lanes that nobody much seems to use offer a perfect foundation for electric bike tours for visitors of all ages.

Melbourne just needs to reinvent itself and those in charge simply must do better because when you ask overseas tourists where in Australia they want to visit, we are a long way down that list and dropping fast.