Despite digital alternatives, visitor information centres still offer unique value for Australian road trippers

Now that maps are digital, bookings are online and artificial intelligence can plan a holiday in seconds, fewer road trippers are stopping at visitor information centres in search of brochures.

Yet, as some information centres close their doors, many travellers maintain the services offer what social media and the internet never will.

Alex Murrie and his partner are five months into driving around Australia in their van named The Loaf.

"Pretty early on, one of the grey nomads told us, 'Every town you go to, get to that information centre and you'll get a good idea of what's around,'" Mr Murrie said.

Since then, the couple look for the distinct yellow 'i' in most towns they visit.

"It's good, especially if we see someone who's been around the town a while — a true local — that's really helpful," Mr Murrie said.

"You can let them know what you're looking for, and they'll straight away say, 'Check out these four places, you'll really like them.'

"Sometimes it's provided us with places to visit that we had no idea about and no intention of going to whatsoever."

He said in a world of social media, visitor information centres provided something different.

"It can be a bit overwhelming — just the amount of information online," he said.

"You'll just see hundreds and hundreds of places and ideas and photos and I don't necessarily want to get to the same place that 300 people have just posted their Instagram video of. It can be a bit crowded."

But as the couple head north from Townsville in North Queensland, they will drive past the recently closed visitor information centre in Tully.

'Not commercially viable'

Cassowary Coast Tourism executive officer Patrick Bluett said his company would no longer be operating the Tully service as an accredited visitor information centre from August.

Mr Bluett said only 6 per cent of visitors to the region used the information centre and that foot traffic had been steadily declining for the past decade — particularly after COVID.

He said there would still be a visitor information centre down the road at Mission Beach.

Mr Bluett said even with volunteer labour, it cost about $240,000 annually in insurance, maintenance and rates to keep the centre open.

"They are not commercially viable unless backed by a local council," Mr Bluett said, adding that he did not think the decision would affect tourism.

"People don't come to an area for the information centre.

"When they're in the area, they may seek out the centre, but even that isn't really reflected in the people coming through the door."

Five years on, closure a 'good decision'

A 28-hour drive south from Tully on the NSW south coast, Eurobodalla Shire Council closed Batemans Bay Visitor Information Centre in 2021, saying fewer than one in 10 travellers was visiting the centre.

Tourism is the second-biggest industry in the region, but two-thirds of council's investment in tourism was supporting just 5 per cent of visitors, a review for the council found.

Councillors were told at the time the new tourism strategy was "fish where the fish are feeding".

Mathew Hatcher was Batemans Bay Business and Tourism Chamber president at the time and lobbied the council to keep the centre.

Now he is the mayor and says his opinions have changed.

"It's proved a good decision. We're getting a lot more value for money now," he said.

He said the money the council saved had been invested in more advertising for the region and supporting more events that brought in tourists during the off-season.

A dollar value on their worth

Wayne Clift, program manager for the accredited visitor information centre network across Queensland, said it was difficult to track the impact visitor information centres had on visitation and tourism spending.

"It's easy to think visitor information centres don't have an impact, but they really do," he said.

"Nobody knows that the reason the tourists stayed an extra day was because the visitor information centre had a really passionate staff member who convinced them to stay and explore the area."

A 2023 review conducted by Painted Dog Research for Tourism WA found people who visited a visitor information centre in regional Western Australia spent $150 more in the region.

It found visitor centres led to $261 million more being spent by tourists in WA in 2023.

Hybrid path forward

Mr Clift said about 15 centres had closed in Queensland over the past decade.

Yet Dalby, 200km west of Brisbane, is currently working towards a new visitor information centre combined with a cultural centre.

Mr Clift said the future of visitor information centres was strong if they were able to adapt and engage online audiences using strategies like their own social media or online chatbots.

"Whilst everybody thinks the digital has all the answers, clearly it doesn't, but also visitor information centres — if they don't start to change and insert themselves into the digital world, will be irrelevant," he said.

Mr Clift said ultimately visitor information centres offered something the internet and social media could never match. And he said that was what kept tourists in the region for longer and spending more.

"If you go into a centre, you will find things that aren't easy to find online — the secret whispers — the sorts of things people didn't even know existed," he said.