Southern belle woos the nation

Long the butt of derisive gags by eastern states types, something weird is happening in Adelaide.

‘It’s going nuts’ … Simon and Laura Burley of South Australian winery tour business Coast & Co at the spectacular Silver Sands Beach south of Adelaide. Picture: Roy Van Der Vegt

Something weird is happening in Adelaide. Visitors are arriving in their thousands and they’re having a fantastic time.

Long the butt of derisive gags by eastern states types, the rest of Australia is finally learning what every South Australian knows: it’s almost impossible to find bad wine, the food culture is sensational, and you can have an ­entire beach to yourself within an hour’s drive of the city.

SA is revelling in an unprecedented tourist boom underscored by visitor figures which this week had every South Australian from the Premier down scratching their heads in disbelief.

Pipped only by the Gold Coast, Adelaide was Australia’s second-most popular tourist destination under the federal government’s half-price airline tickets scheme.

The city so often defamed as dullsville has attracted 159,964 visitors, shy of the Gold Coast with 197,730 visitors but way ahead of third-placed Hobart with 80,239. In contrast, the prospect of being snared in one of Mark McGowan’s snap border closures proved a disincentive for would-be travellers to Western Australia, with just 2441 people flying to Broome.

The surging interest in SA is credited to several factors, chief among them its enviable performance against COVID and the fact that normal life has pretty much returned, with pubs and restaurants at almost full capacity and a packed house of 50,000 allowed for tonight’s AFL Adelaide Oval derby between Port Adelaide and the Adelaide Crows.

And with international borders closed, it appears that many Australians who long shunned SA on account of the old stereotypes are giving it a shot at last.

The surge in interest is a great business story for those tourist ­operators who this time last year were shutting up shop and laying off staff.

“You could say as an understatement that we had a pretty quiet time of it for the four months from March to June last year,” Fleurieu Peninsula wine and adventure tour operator Simon Burley told The Weekend Australian.

“Now it is going nuts. This April was our busiest month on record. Around 75 per cent of our guests would not otherwise have been in SA and they have been really surprised and delighted.”

Mr Burley’s company Coast & Co specialises in bespoke wine and adventure tours of the South Vales region, where a typical day might involve four-wheel driving through Onkaparinga Gorge before tastings at little-known cellar doors such as Samson Tall or Battle of Bosworth in Willunga, finishing with a glass or two at sunset on the beach at Silver Sands.

Burley said the easy accessibility of SA’s best features from Adelaide was a huge drawcard for short-stay visitors.

“You can have a great meal in town on a Friday, a terrific breakfast at the Central Market the next morning and be down here in the Southern Vales by 11am,” he said.

“All of the great stuff we can do would take you days to organise in other parts of Australia.”

It is not just the higher-end tourism market where growth is occurring. Families are keen to visit kid-friendly places such as Kangaroo Island and Wilpena Pound which are less about wine than wildlife.

Premier Steven Marshall, who appointed himself Tourism Minister last year to take carriage after the devastating summer bushfires, said it was about time the rest of Australia woke up to SA.

Mr Marshall said that from January to March this year, regional accommodation in SA enjoyed its best three-month period on record, while in March, CBD hotel occupancy was the highest since the pandemic began and the highest of any mainland Australian capital.

“South Australian tourism is going gangbusters, particularly in our world-class regions,” Mr Marshall said. “From vineyard tours in the Barossa to luxury escapes on Kangaroo Island, glamping in the Flinders Ranges to swimming with sea lions in Eyre Peninsula, there’s no wonder people are flocking here.”

SA Tourism Commission chief Rod Harrex said recent market share research showed SA had just overtaken Victoria to become the Australian state most closely associated by travellers with quality food and wine, which has been the focus of the SATC’s campaigns.

Chief executive of the Tourism and Transport Forum Margy Osmond said the key factor for tourism was confidence and warned there remained “issues around the prospect of lockdowns”.

She also pressed for greater clarity about the vaccine rollout, arguing national cabinet had “not really given a clear indication of timeframes.”

Executive director of the Australian Tourism Industry Council, Simon Westaway said South Australia had “marketed really effectively”, and he was not surprised it had performed well from the half-price airfares, arguing it was largely an intra and interstate market.

“If we can get a good clear run and effective management and containment of the spotfires of COVID … that’s what we want to continue to see,” he said. “Open borders equals confidence.”