Declining tourist numbers in the South West will see Skydive Geronimo leave Busselton to operate their business solely at Rottnest Island, where tourism is booming.
Skydive Geronimo business owner Amy Stutt said after starting the business in 2010 they had seen a downward trend of interstate and international visitor numbers since 2015.
Ms Stutt said the business had been struggling and they could not rely on the local market because repeat business in skydiving was rare.
“In Australia, only 1 per cent of people who do a tandem skydive would ever do a second one, even though they absolutely love it, they spend their disposable income on doing something different,” she said.
“We really rely on visitors to the area.”
Ms Stutt said also affecting their decision to leave was an increase in permit fees and the need to reinvest $150,000 to build a new hanger at the Busselton Margaret River Airport so they could continue operating.
She said while they were supportive of the airport redevelopment and the benefits it would deliver, it did not make financial sense for their business.
“We cannot ignore the fact that for our business, it has not really worked out in our favour, with the cost of building, the airport is not providing us with any form of security,” she said.
“If we did not have those pressures we would probably continue to operate.”
Ms Stutt said they were feeling nostalgic and had such a wonderful time skydiving over the Busselton Jetty for the last eight years.
“We have taken more than 14,000 people skydiving in Busselton and we had nothing but wonderful support from the community,” she said.
“Certainly we are very sad to be leaving the area, but on the other hand we are excited to continue operating our successful skydiving business at Rottnest Island.”
Ms Stutt said Rottnest Island had seen huge growth in visitor numbers in recent years, and their business was seeing the positive effects of that.
“It is not just us, the whole island is hitting record visitor numbers,” she said.
Ms Stutt said it would be business as usual until March 31, and the team would love to see as many community members as they could throughout the next month.
“Even if anyone would like to pop in and say hi to the team and show us some photos of when they did their skydive that would be great,” she said.
“Or if people would like to finally tick a skydive off their bucket list if they have been thinking about doing it for a really long time then we would love to see them out there.”
City of Busselton director of community and commercial services Naomi Searle said it was always disappointing when a business leaves the district.
Ms Searle said it was unfortunate for the business and their employees, and also sad to see the tourist offerings available in the city decline.
“The city has invested $2.6 million toward the development of a dedicated general aviation precinct as part of the airport expansion project,” she said.
“Like other lessees, Skydive Geronimo had their existing hanger leases bought back by the city at market value price.
“The city has no control over the cost of constructing a hanger which is driven entirely by the market.”
Ms Searle said the city acknowledged that some tourist operators were doing it tough and they were working hard to increase visitation to the region through a proactive events and marketing strategy.
She said the city continued to negotiate with airline providers to sure regular passenger flights into Busselton and worked closely with the Margaret River and Busselton Tourism Bureau and chambers of commerce.
MRBTA cheif executive officer Sharna Kearney said 2018 was challenging in terms of both visitor numbers and spend, and that 2019 data was already showing signs of recovery.
Ms Kearney said visitation from all markets, except intrastate day-trippers to the Margaret River region was markedly up for the year ending September 2018.
She said international visitation was still lagging behind 2016 numbers, but showing signs of improvement.
“Anecdotal feedback from businesses in the region is varied with some experiencing steady numbers and others are quieter,” she said.
“MRBTA recently launched a monthly visitation and spend survey among our members to obtain additional data to identify trends and patterns to assist us in our advocacy efforts with government.
“MRBTA is working on a number of exciting projects this year including an intrastate campaign focussed on new promotional videos encouraging West Australian’s to ‘rediscover’ the region.”
The organisation has also partnered with Expedia to boost visitation from Singapore and have another in-market event in Singapore supported by the International Wine Tourism Grant.