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Speaker 1: We know that over the last week, well, anecdotally, it

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Speaker 1: feels like Darwin has been bustling with the Darwin Aboriginal

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Speaker 1: Art Fair. We know we've got the Darwin Festival underway.

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Speaker 1: We then had the T twenty cricket as well as

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Speaker 1: plenty of other fantastic events. Now it has sort of

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Speaker 1: felt like the days of old. I think we're tourists

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Speaker 1: buzzing around the place, but well, have there actually been

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Speaker 1: as many visitors about? Is what it feels like. There

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Speaker 1: has been joining me in the studio to give us

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Speaker 1: a bit of an idea of how things have been tracking.

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Speaker 1: The general manager of Tourism Top End, Sam Bennett.

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Speaker 2: Good morning, Sam, Morning Katie.

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Speaker 1: Lovely to have you on the show now. Sam, I

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Speaker 1: tell you, it feels like it has been such a

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Speaker 1: busy couple of weeks and like there's been a real

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Speaker 1: influx of people. From your perspective, has there been?

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Speaker 2: Absolutely?

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Speaker 3: July was one of our biggest months in the It's

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Speaker 3: the biggest month of the year for us in a

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Speaker 3: visitor information center. We did about four hundred thousand dollars

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Speaker 3: worth of product sales. That's every thing from attractions to

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Speaker 3: accommodation to car hire to touring.

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Speaker 2: That's a really good number.

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Speaker 3: It's sort of indicates, you know, we have about eighty

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Speaker 3: thousand visitors through our center every year, but.

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Speaker 2: A lot of them come in May, June, July.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so about four hundred thousand through that month of July,

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Speaker 1: and that's just through tourism topic. You know, that doesn't

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Speaker 1: even incorporate other money that's flowing around the NT. How

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Speaker 1: for you, how does that compare to other months.

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Speaker 3: Look, I think we had a really good month in May,

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Speaker 3: and again I think a lot of this stuff is

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Speaker 3: events driven. June was a little bit down, but I

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Speaker 3: think that was there was a lot of stuff going

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Speaker 3: on with defense as well, so accommodation was a bit more.

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Speaker 2: Expensive, and people waited to July and.

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Speaker 3: Came for the you know, for the dry season, the

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Speaker 3: real lovely weather and the bad weather down south.

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Speaker 2: That's when they really want to get out.

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Speaker 1: So true in terms of you know, what people are

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Speaker 1: saying to you then as well, when they've traveled into Darwin.

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Speaker 2: What are they here for?

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Speaker 1: What kinds of events or what kinds of things?

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Speaker 3: I think they're really here for the territory feel, and

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Speaker 3: we've delivered on that, you know, like it feels like

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Speaker 3: old territory. Darwyn Cup was amazing. It was pumping, It

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Speaker 3: had a real vibe to it. We've had things like

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Speaker 3: the rodeo down at the waterfront that brought people together.

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Speaker 3: It brought people from the city, it bought tourists, that

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Speaker 3: brought all the rural mob into town.

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Speaker 1: I had friends from Mount Eyes, so people who I

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Speaker 1: haven't seen for agents here for it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it was amazing.

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Speaker 3: You know, Darwin Festival has got such a great reputation,

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Speaker 3: but it.

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Speaker 2: Delivers year on year.

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Speaker 3: And you know, I was on a boat on Sunday

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Speaker 3: night with American. He was so funny. I think locals

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Speaker 3: do it, but also visitors. They come for these signature

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Speaker 3: events and we can see an increase in participation from

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Speaker 3: those signature events.

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Speaker 1: I mean, those events are wonderful and they do seem

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Speaker 1: as though they bring quite a bit of tourism to town. Luck.

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Speaker 1: Do you have any idea when people do come for

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Speaker 1: an event, do they stay for a few days? Are

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Speaker 1: they spending their money in our local restaurants on you know,

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Speaker 1: like on tours and that kind of thing.

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Speaker 3: Absolutely, they do spend a couple of days in town.

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Speaker 3: But what it is really good for is the regional dispersal,

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Speaker 3: because you know a lot of that market is the

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Speaker 3: drive market, and so they're traveling through Catherine, they're spending

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Speaker 3: time in Kakado. Litchfield is really busy. You know, the

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Speaker 3: numbers are up in the park as well. It affects everywhere.

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Speaker 3: Dundee is crazy at this time, really. Yeah, you cannot

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Speaker 3: get a spot for your van anywhere.

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Speaker 1: Yep.

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Speaker 3: And the pub is doing a great job out there,

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Speaker 3: you know, they're really catering to that day drive market.

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Speaker 3: The fishing operators are doing well. I think all round,

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Speaker 3: it's a really positive season. And like I said, it

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Speaker 3: feels like ol duh. And you know people are coming

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Speaker 3: because we're different, and we're different because we're so more

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Speaker 3: relaxed about things.

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Speaker 1: Hey, you mentioned then you know people with their vans.

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Speaker 1: Are we seeing a lot of that drive tourism or

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Speaker 1: a lot of people traveling on the road in their

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Speaker 1: caravans or are we more seeing people flying in whats

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Speaker 1: or is there a bit of column a bit of Columbae.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, a bit of both, I think.

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Speaker 3: But I think that the drive market is always like

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Speaker 3: our substantive market. They're the ones that come. They definitely

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Speaker 3: travel differently. Those rigs are set up to pull up anywhere.

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Speaker 3: They don't actually need a caravan park. So they do

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Speaker 3: do a fair bit of free camping and you know,

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Speaker 3: there's a lot of other little things that they do.

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Speaker 3: But when they're in town they do spend the money

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Speaker 3: and they sort of save their money as they're traveling

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Speaker 3: through accommodation because they carry their house with them and

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Speaker 3: then spend that on doing things in town. And they

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Speaker 3: you know, they eat in the pubs, they look after hospitality,

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Speaker 3: they love events. They'll do some wacky stuff as well.

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Speaker 3: You know, they'll they'll challenge themselves, they'll do the jet skis.

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Speaker 3: It's a younger demographic that's in the caravans as well.

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Speaker 3: We're seeing a lot more family coming.

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Speaker 1: That's good. That is a good thing to see. Sam.

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Speaker 1: When you look at the number of people coming through

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Speaker 1: the visitor Information center at the moment at tourism topic

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Speaker 1: and has that like, do you feel as though that's

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Speaker 1: increased over recent months?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? Absolutely.

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Speaker 3: I think the thing that we've done really well this

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Speaker 3: year is worked closely with business events. So the World

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Speaker 3: Archaeology Congress held their conference in Darwin and that brought

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Speaker 3: two two hundred delegates into Darwin for a four day conference,

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Speaker 3: but they stayed because they were international. They were everywhere

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Speaker 3: from you know, Argentina all the way through to Zimbabwe.

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Speaker 3: Seventy nine countries attended and they stayed because they were

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Speaker 3: investing in coming here. So seven hundred and fifty of

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Speaker 3: them went to Kakadu.

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Speaker 1: That is crazy. So two two hundred people here for

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Speaker 1: the World Archaeology Conference.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't even know it was on. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 2: well we it definitely was. It was massive and they

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Speaker 2: did things really different.

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Speaker 3: You know, they chose Darwin over every other destination in

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Speaker 3: Australia because of our cultural history.

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Speaker 2: You know, they love rocket Yeah, isn't that awesome?

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Speaker 1: And so I mean we talk a lot about bringing

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Speaker 1: event tourism to Darwin, but do you think that business

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Speaker 1: tourism as well is really important or you know, having conferences,

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Speaker 1: having people here and trying to attract them to the

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Speaker 1: Northern Territory as that event destination. Is that something that

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Speaker 1: we should try to capitalize on.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and it is absolutely what tourism and TEE do

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Speaker 3: really well. They identify what those guys are into and

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Speaker 3: then try to tailor it to them and then tourism

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Speaker 3: top end tries to. We do a conference landing page

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Speaker 3: that goes out to the delegates to tell them everything

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Speaker 3: they can do while they're here. And it's quite funny

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Speaker 3: because they normally book their conference tickets before they book

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Speaker 3: their flights, and then they get that link and then

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Speaker 3: they go, oh, I might stay a few days. So

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Speaker 3: it's a really really important part of the sector.

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Speaker 1: Now, a really different event that's coming up, and one

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Speaker 1: we we haven't seen before is the motocross, the World

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Speaker 1: Motocross Championships. I've had people in the street talking to

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Speaker 1: me about this going Wolfe, I don't think you understand

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Speaker 1: how exciting this is. So I don't think you understand

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Speaker 1: how big this is going to be, Like how many

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Speaker 1: people are we expecting here.

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Speaker 2: For the World Motocross.

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Speaker 3: I don't actually know the numbers that are. I don't

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Speaker 3: know what the ticket cap is you're that, But I

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Speaker 3: know that it's big. I know that a lot of

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Speaker 3: the accommodation is big. It has already quite well.

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Speaker 2: Booked for that period.

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Speaker 3: It brings a lot of riders, it brings teams, and

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Speaker 3: it brings a massive following. It's a really big event

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Speaker 3: on the motorsport calendar and the Women's Motocross Championships is

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Speaker 3: making its taboo right here in Australia in Darwin. It's

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Speaker 3: so inspiring for those riders that are into this, but

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Speaker 3: I think everybody will just have a great time. I

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Speaker 3: think it's such a fantastic event to you'll be able

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Speaker 3: to host in Darwin and you know, hopefully we'll have

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Speaker 3: five years of this and that'll be wonderful for us.

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Speaker 2: It is really good.

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Speaker 1: It's good to see that we've got some increased tourism numbers.

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Speaker 1: It's good to see that we've got different events that

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Speaker 1: are really drawing people to the Northern territory. Do you

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Speaker 1: think there's any areas where we could be sort of

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Speaker 1: capitalizing further or doing a little bit more, you know,

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Speaker 1: to target tourists or something that we could be doing differently.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. I think that the new Wet Season campaign, I

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Speaker 3: know we don't call it the wet but the Wet

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Speaker 3: Season campaign a low season campaign that's being pulled together

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Speaker 3: at the moment that's got a lot of buy in

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Speaker 3: from Tourism and Tea of obviously running the campaign, but

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Speaker 3: we're working with them, so's Alice. We're kind of working

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Speaker 3: as one team territory at the moment, which is a

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Speaker 3: really really nice feel. We all need each other, right,

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Speaker 3: we're an ecosystem, and so we're really determined to change

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Speaker 3: the retric that you don't visit day and after the

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Speaker 3: thirty first of August, and so, you know, we see

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Speaker 3: other people do it.

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Speaker 2: We know that Singapore do it really well.

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Speaker 3: They've got the same temperature as us, you know, Chazzy,

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Speaker 3: we always can spare ourselves to them because they made

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Speaker 3: winter cool.

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Speaker 1: Yep.

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Speaker 3: So we're trying to get that message out that it's

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Speaker 3: the best time. You know, there's some great things to

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Speaker 3: do in the top end in the wet season that

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Speaker 3: you can't do in the dry.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's exactly right. And look, it might be hot,

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Speaker 1: might be humored, but you also catch some storms and

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Speaker 1: things that you just wouldn't even experience anywhere else in

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Speaker 1: the world. Like, we do have some things that are

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Speaker 1: really unique. And I think you're right, we've got to

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Speaker 1: we've got to capitalize on those things.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think you know, the visitor is really

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Speaker 3: connecting not with the old influences of past, the unobtainable,

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Speaker 3: but they're actually really connecting with real people and real stories,

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Speaker 3: and I think that that's something that we probably need

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Speaker 3: to keep telling, is our story, because that's what makes

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Speaker 3: us different.

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Speaker 1: Well, Sam Bennett, Tourism top Ends, General Manager. Great to

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Speaker 1: catch up with you this morning. Thanks so much for

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Speaker 1: your time.

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Speaker 2: Thanks Katie, thank you,