Sun shines on the coast
A $3 MILLION profit from the Anglesea Family Caravan Park will be reinvested in the park and fund coastal capital works.
It will also underpin development of a 10-year masterplan for the park, which the not-for-profit Great Ocean Road Coast Committee added to its operations in December last year.
GORCC increased direct revenue from $9 million to $14 million last financial year with 80 per cent of its revenue coming from managing the popular Anglesea, Torquay and Lorne caravan parks and the rest from 20 leases and 21 licences it issues to beachside operators.
But there is no recurrent government funding for the organisation, which manages 37km of coastal Crown Land reserves from Point Impossible to Cumberland River.
Chief executive Vanessa Schernickau said the challenge of preservation and maintenance of coastal assets was significant and growing,
“What once might have been a one-in-five year storm event, might now be a one-in-three year storm event,” Ms Schernickau said.
GORCC regularly replaces damaged foreshore infrastructure but she said that function could not necessarily be guaranteed into the future amid increased visitor numbers and greater environmental pressures through climate change.
“We have a challenge where we do need to increase our revenue to meet our long-term coastal adaptation challenges,” she said.
GORCC employs 11 full-time staff to maintain its reserves, with 17 full-timers in the caravan parks, eight in administration and five in education and conservation. It has a further 56 part-time and casual employees.
To help address its challenges, it is working two sides of the problem by innovating to increase revenue and educating its visitors about caring for the environment.
This year it has supported a Kids Adventure Outdoors at Anglesea and launched a Glamping Fiesta in Lorne, a threeday guided Aboriginal heritage walk from Torquay to Aireys Inlet and developed more packaged deals with local businesses.