Project Description

Huon Valley Council appointed Otium to prepare a Mountain Bike Feasibility Study that explored the potential for developing successful mountain bike experiences in the Huon Valley that would drive tourism and economic activity in the region.

The underlying objective of the project was to explore the development of a mountain bike destination that continued the development of the sustainable tourism industry and grows economic activity in Huon Valley, and involved:

  • Investigating the size of the mountain bike tourism market in Australia.
  • Reviewing other mountain biking destinations recognised as benchmarks for mountain bike tourism.
  • Exploring the suitability of Huon Valley for mountain biking.
  • Defining a potential mountain biking trail network.
  • Outlining possible unique destination attributes to attract visiting and local mountain bike enthusiasts – a point of difference to existing mountain bike destinations in Tasmania.
  • Likely costs to construct a mountain bike trail network.
  • Projecting potential visitation and economic benefits.
  • Consideration of feasibility, sustainability, commercialisation and economic activity opportunities to support growing market demand and interest.

Huon Valley has a number of strategic advantages as an adventure and nature-based tourism destination however, the study identified that the development of the region as a national/ international mountain bike destination would be problematic, due to the lack of sufficient area for a trail network of more than 100km with a location allowing for riding access to the local township, as the layout of a network that allows for rides to finish in the township is a highly desirable success factor.

An emerging opportunity for the region was to leverage a range of land and water trail networks catering for low intensity recreation use and more intensive multi-day adventure trail development with the potential to develop a mountain bike trail product as part of a broader strategy offering a wide range of opportunities that spreads the risk of investing in a single product vulnerable to extreme weather or fire as well as broadening appeal to a much greater market than just mountain bike riders.

Client:

Huon Valley Council