Newcastle | for community success such as the art gallery, museum and Civic Theatre. The third theme of the strategy is Business Growth and Employment Creation, and it recognises that new businesses are important for the revitalisation of Newcastle. As part of this focus, the Council will work with key businesses, organisations and networks to encourage growth in existing industries; eliminate obstacles to business growth; and ensure that small businesses are able to access business advice and other business development programs. The fourth theme is Innovation and Creativity. In identifying this theme, the Council noted that Newcastle already has a base in a wide range of creative industries, including performing arts, creative arts, media and communications, architecture and design and teaching in all these fields. According to the report, around 1.8 per cent of Newcastle employment is in the creative economy. In order to continue demonstrating this leadership, the Economic Development Strategy suggests Newcastle utilise home grown programs to develop new ventures, and to facilitate better access to government programs that support research, innovation and commercialisation. The fifth and final theme of the strategy is Developing the Visitor Economy. The report notes that tourism is a key development priority for Newcastle, and that the value of the visitor economy is estimated at $722 million. The report also says the visitor market is growing, and there is potential to expand the market even further. Prospective markets Newcastle is working on improving include interstate and international visitors; the short stay market from Sydney; business visitors; cruise ships; and events related travel. “Currently, the main source of visitors is people visiting friends and relatives,” Greg says. “So obviously the people who live here are very proud of their city and encourage people to come and visit them in their homes. Nearly 40 per cent of our visitation comes that way, which is higher than the state and national average.” “On top of that, we have the business tourism side of things,” he adds. “We have a fairly active conference market here, because our facilities work really well for up to 300 people and they’re not overly expensive.” According to the Economic Development Strategy, the key to building on that visitor economywill be further marketing the city as a visitor destination, as well as guiding Council’s direct investment in events.
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