Holiday parks are now reporting they are filling up over January, with a surge of business in the past week. People have realised the beaches are cleaned up with little chance of more oil spills - and the word is out that fishing is good in the harbours and the sea.
A tourism recovery campaign is being launched this evening to promote the Western Bay region. Organised by Tourism Bay of Plenty, which covers the coastal area from Waihi Beach to Whakatane, the campaign will be available for individual businesses which want to market themselves.
The campaign will reinforce the message that "it's business as usual in the Bay. Come and enjoy its attractions and hospitality."
Tourism attracts $450 million into the Bay economy each year - for the Western Bay a lot of that comes in the summer holiday period and the region, still facing uncertain times with Psa, needs every dollar it can get.
The Western Bay has a wide range of attractions, cultural, historical, adventure, food trails, walking - and the latest is a flight over Tauranga in a Russian fighter-trainer plane at 320km/h.
The local tourism industry is slowly but surely growing.
I can't help but think that one addition will speed up that growth - the redevelopment of the Mount Hot Pools underneath Mauao.
A story in today's paper talks about the city council's final step to abandon its multi-million dollar plan to upgrade the hot pools, including introducing a health spa to compete with Rotorua.
The project is being removed from the council's long term community plan and can be reconsidered when the plan is reviewed in three years' time.
I've said it before, the hot pools should be the No1 visitor attraction in town.
An improved version will attract even more visitors. Aucklanders and Waikato folk will arrange weekends away around them.
With the Rena grounding and the spread of Psa puncturing the local economy, we need other business developments to attract additional revenue into the region.
