ON July 10 about 50 people from local and surrounding South West areas gathered at the Nannup Bowling Club to take part in a Garden Tourism Workshop.
The workshop was hosted by Nannup businessman John Stanley and facilitated by the Department of Geog raphy, Central Connec ticut University's Rich ard Benfield.
Its was an opportunity for key stakeholders to learn and understand how garden tourism is becoming one of the world's fastest growing tourism activities.
After a brief introduction from Mr Stanley, Mr Benfield gave a power point presentation focusing on data he has been collecting since 1997 on tourists who have visited botanic gardens around the globe.
He explained how certain ads worked to promote a garden; those showing families or couples enjoying the space, also as outlets for stress relief with people relaxing on the lawns for instance, not just a beautiful picture of the garden.
Statistics show the main reason for people visiting gardens is to be outdoors, for the beauty, stress relief and a place to socialise.
Gardens lift our spirits and compared to other attractions, for instance amusement parks or casinos, they are comparatively inexpensive to visit.
Also, if there is an attraction or feature in the garden, for example, adding giant Lego statues or an amazing plant sculpture (mosaiculture), this really helps to draw a crowd.
The results of Mr Benfield's research show 31 per cent of the world's tourists will visit a garden during their travels.
After some light refreshments, the group was split into smaller groups to discuss issues such as how to build garden tourism in the community and improve local economy.
Ideas which emerged included improved networking and communication within the gardening community; tour operators, bus tour companies etc; consolidating garden marketing efforts and a WA garden website where all open gardens, festivals and events are listed. Although garden tourism is one of the fastest growing tourism activities it is often not understood and poorly promoted.
WA has an ideal opportunity to maximise the tourism opportunities around public and private gardens and the myriad of flower and garden festivals, shows and events that happen state wide each year.
Dr Benfield's book Garden Tourism (published May last year) is available online.
