The countdown for the Mon Repos Nightly Turtle Encounters is officially on with the season to begin next Friday evening. The turtle experience at Mon Repos sits on many bucket lists across Australia and around the world and is one of the key drivers of visitation over the summer months for the Bundaberg Region economy.
With over 5000 tickets sold in the first 24 hours and the encounters currently at 90 percent capacity, we are excited to welcome visitors to the region for our Summer Season.
Supporting the largest concentration of nesting turtles on the East coast of Australia and the most significant loggerhead turtle nesting population in the South Pacific, Mon Repos plays a truly important role in the survival of these endangered creatures, and our region’s economy.
Every night, the dedicated turtle rangers, researchers and volunteers work to ensure the protection of the turtles, their nests and hatchlings, along with educating visitors on these magnificent marine animals that call Bundaberg home over summer.
The artificial light glow from the surrounding communities is known to disorientate the nesting mother turtles and affect the turtle hatchlings navigation to the sea, and we love how the Bundaberg community is committed to ‘cutting-the-glow’. With locals and visitors, businesses and industry being mindful of their light spill, switching off unnecessary lights, planting vegetation to create light barriers, closing the blinds at home and shielding commercial lighting or using ‘turtle-sensitive' globes.
Whilst the turtle encounter tour is delivered on the ground by the wonderful rangers and volunteers…. the actual consumer experience starts long before the visitor even steps foot within the Mon Repos Conservation Park and has the opportunity to extend long after they’ve returned home – and that’s where the marriage of tourism and turtles really shines.
It’s the way we communicate about turtles to visitors researching their holiday options, it’s how we talk about the turtles with our friends and relatives when we’re planning Christmas at home, it's how we teach our kids to turn off the lights from October to April, it's how we say no to straws and plastic bags and it's how we own the delivery of the experience as a region….which is the commitment that we make towards their future survival.
Along with Mon Repos, the ladies of the Southern Great Barrier Reef, Lady Elliot Island and Lady Musgrave Island are popular nesting and hatching spots with the endangered loggerhead, green and hawksbill turtles. Helping with their survival, Lady Elliot Island ensures light is minimized during the season, and their Turtle Rangers monitor the animals. As Lady Musgrave Experience’s pontoon will soon be in water, this will create another opportunity for our visitors to interact with turtles and learn more about their conservation.
Tourism gives us the opportunity to tell a story. To evoke an emotional connection. And to enlist ambassadors towards a cause. Tourism presents the vehicle to educate.
And as we grow the visitor economy, we also grow the coalition of people that have connected with the turtles and this presents a huge opportunity in advocacy.
With our local community and businesses all working together to help protect the endangered loggerheads, it ensures their survival, that they return to our shores for years to come and that the Bundaberg region continues to be where Australia shines for turtles.
Yours in tourism,
Katherine Reid, CEO
PS: If there are other things you would like to see in this column about tourism – let us know on our corporate Facebook page at www.facebook.com/bundabergtourism
