The Tourism & Transport Forum Australia (TTF) has welcomed the release of the Connecting Regional Victoria – Victoria’s Regional Network Development Plan and the inclusion growing the regional visitor economy as a key focus of the strategy.

“A reliable and accessible regional transport system encourages more tourist dispersal into regional areas and that will support stronger visitor economies in local communities. It is fantastic to see the Victorian Government embracing this message as part of its regional transport strategy,” said Margy Osmond, TTF CEO.

“It is very encouraging to see the Government is committing itself to working with the newly formed Visit Victoria to provide integrated information for tourists and visitors. TTF has been a vocal advocate of the need to improve the visitor experience through better information sharing about public transport services.

“Exploring options to increase the frequency of trains on long distance routes to support tourism as well as investigating options for dedicated services for special events in regional Victoria is a step in the right direction.

“Improving bus and coach services as well as enhancing station facilities will make it more attractive for visitors to use public transport to access regional Victoria.”

Ms Osmond said it was positive to see that Myki will be rolled out to more locations in regional Victoria. TTF has been campaigning for the Government to develop a dedicated tourist Myki offering to make the smart card more accessible to domestic and international visitors to Victoria.

“TTF has also called for more access to real time transport information and it is encouraging to see the Victorian Government placing emphasis on this as well as providing information in other languages to help visitors move around.”