Clarence Valley Council has won the Bronze award for Destination Marketing at the NSW Tourism Awards 2019 in Sydney for ‘My Clarence Valley’. Meanwhile in a week of award announcements, Council’s Maclean Riverside Precinct and new Bookable system each received Highly Commendable awards at the Institute of Public Works Engineering Australia (IPWEA) NSW Excellence awards in the Hunter Valley.

Responding to the tourism award, General Manager Ashley Lindsay said “This is a very exciting achievement for My Clarence Valley, especially to have won Bronze in the Destination Marketing category.”

“This win speaks volumes of the high level of dedication and commitment shown by our Economic Development and Tourism staff, ensuring our marketing strategy connects with potential visitors across the whole Clarence Valley.”

The judges commented on the ability of the team to accomplish a lot in a very short space of time. And said – “Congratulations, look forward to following your continued success!”

Council’s Brand & Marketing Officer, Louise Gumb said “Tourism Research Australia figures reflected an increase in 22% of visitors to the region for the year up to December 2018. This is the on the ground evidence that our strategies are working.”

“This award is for all of our Clarence Valley businesses that benefit from tourism”, said Ms Gumb.

We were up against some fantastic, well established destinations and to be acknowledged for our Destination Marketing amongst our peers is really exciting. We look forward to going for gold next year!” she added.

You can follow the good work of My Clarence Valley Tourism on Facebook and Instagram @myclarencevalley and at www.myclarencevalley.com

Clarence Valley Council wins again – Twice!

In the other award announcements, Council’s Maclean Riverside Precinct and new Bookable system each received Highly Commendable awards at the Institute of Public Works Engineering Australia (IPWEA) NSW Excellence awards in the Hunter Valley. Both awards were accepted by Director Works and Civil, Troy Anderson on the night.

The Maclean Riverside Precinct received a highly commended in the “Projects greater than $500k and less than $5M” category. The Maclean Riverside Precinct has reinvigorated Maclean’s historic town centre and re-established its link to the Clarence River.

General Manager, Ashley Lindsay has said “We worked with private designers, external contractors, Maclean High School, the Yaegl Aboriginal community, the Yaegl bush regeneration team as well as crews from our Open Spaces and bridge teams to deliver something the community can be extremely proud of.”

“This award is not just for the engineering and project management staff of council; it is also for everyone in the wider community who were involved at any point through conception to completion”, Ashley added.

The other winner on the night was ‘Bookable’ in the “New or Improved Techniques including: Innovation and/or Introduction of Techniques or Outstanding Management Initiatives or Outstanding Achievement in Asset Management” category.

Bookable was introduced to help manage bookings for our parks, sporting fields, public halls community centres and cemeteries. Bookable replaces a clunky, inefficient booking process that required the attention of multiple staff and could take weeks to finalise a single booking. The new self-service digital platform provides an automated end-to-end booking service that will let the customer process their own bookings in minutes.

Mr Lindsay said the working group that developed Bookable included representatives from all council departments involved in the booking process, external software developers and community users.

“It’s great to see this project get this sort of recognition”, he said.
“The benefits it brings to the organisation, users and the community are enormous.”