Come with me on a short journey, if you will, back in time.  Its late 2021 and Launceston is named a UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy. Fast forward to February 2022 and Launceston is named WOTIF’s Top Aussie Town. Jump ahead to last Monday and the news broke, Launceston is the Tourism Industry Council Tasmania (TICT)’s Top Tassie Tourism Town for 2022.

Three awards were presented in the 2022 Top Tourism Town Awards, with Strahan taking out the award for towns with a population less than 1500, Sheffield taking out the award for towns with a population under 5000 and Launceston winning the category for towns with a population over 5000.

As the editorial article that formed part of Launceston’s submission to the award states:

There’s something that lies beneath the surface here that defines us as a city. You may not see it at first, but the moment you step foot here, you feel it. You sense it in the architecture, in the streets, out in nature, between the people —an undercurrent—born from generations of hard-work, curiosity, community, resilience, independence.

It’s clear from our UNESCO designation, and our Top Town Awards that they’re on to us… the world is waking up to what a wonderful piece of the world we have here. It’s also clear we’re on our way to achieving the Chamber’s vision for Launceston to be one of the great regional cities of the world.

While these awards and the UNESCO designation are an amazing achievement, particularly for our outstanding tourism, food, beverage and hospitality businesses, we can’t rest on our laurels. We need to keep striving to improve our city.  So how do we continue to progress our city?

• Greening will make for a great start. A greener city is a more vibrant city and vibrancy attracts more social activity in our CBD.
• An improved night-time economy will enable visitors to enjoy our amazing food and beverages in style while enjoying on-street dining. This will commence with City Heart Stage 2, which we still hope will receive the federal funding it needs to commence.
• Innovation and technology to make Launceston an even smarter city, offer wayfinding to tourists and telling our heritage stories could increase awareness and interaction with our rich history. (Please see the article below participating in the Smart City Strategy survey)

To quote Mayor Albert van Zetten, “It’s fantastic to see our city being recognised once more for its tourism offering and I want to congratulate all those who work in the sector so passionately to attract new visitors to Launceston.”

Congratulations Launceston!

Have you got an idea that would make our top town (city) even better? We’d love to hear it.

As of the 24^th of March, .au second-level domain names are now available in Australia. This means if you have a local connection to Australia or already have a .com.au, .org.au, .gov.au or .edu.au you have until the 20^th of September to reserve your .au equivalent domain name, if you don’t secure it after the 20^th of September it will become available to the general public. For example, the Chamber’s current domain is www.lcc.asn.au, we now have the first option to purchase www.lcc.au.

This is an important consideration for your business. While the new second-level domain names are shorter and potentially more memorable, they also offer cybercriminals another avenue to conduct fraudulent cyber activities. Opportunistic cybercriminals could register your .au domain name in an attempt to impersonate your business.

For example, if you have currently registered yourbusiness.com.au, a cybercriminal could register yourbusiness.au or yourbusinesscom.au and use these domains to conduct fraudulent cyber activities. 

The Australian Cyber Security Centre has recommended that all Australian businesses with existing domain names register their .au equivalents before 20 September 2022. If a business does not reserve their .au equivalent direct domain name during this six-month period, that name will become available to the public on a first come, first served basis.

For more information, please click here or visit Platinum Chamber member Kingthing Marketing’s blog post on the topic.

I will happily admit I do. It’s a great way to start the day with a mini-mental workout. If you haven’t played Wordle, it’s all about five-letter words. When you type in your guess, you pause hit enter and wait with bated breath as the squares around your letter change colour, hoping that you’ve found the right word and all the squares turn green. This may or may not be followed by a brief episode of happy dancing.

And the five-letter word GREEN is becoming more important by the day. According to the Bureau of Meteorology, our nights in January were the warmest on record and our days were the third warmest on record. In the same report, Launceston had the warmest days on average at 27 degrees. We need to cool our city and region down; this is why the Chamber has such a passion for Urban Greening. There is a huge amount of evidence that Urban Greening has a triple-bottom-line benefit:

Environmental: Urban Greening will help cool our city and suburbs, and increase our biodiversity.

Economic: Increased property values, increased foot traffic and the time people spend in the city will lead to increased sales.

Social: Improved physical and mental health and improved community connectedness.

At yesterday’s Tamar Valley Leaders Lunch (LUNCH is another great five letter word), it was fantastic to hear that the University of Tasmania is contributing to a greener Launceston with sustainable, environmentally friendly developments as part of the Northern Transformation project.

Another five-letter word is LOCAL. Last year we encouraged everyone to Buy, Support and Eat locally. Supporting our local businesses is still extremely important as we navigate our way through the current health and social situation. Buying local is the best form of stimulus. Revisit this blog post for more details and suggestions.

Our next five-letter word is YOUTH. To quote Austrian novelist Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach “in youth we learn; in age we understand.”  If there is a young person within your organisation that’s learning their profession and could use some more business connections, why not bring them along to a Chamber event? Attending a Chamber event will allow them to make valuable new connections and gain insights from the keynote speaker.

Our final five-letter word is ISSUE. If there are any issues your business is facing that you need assistance with or need advocacy for, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

During a recent conversation with a group of members it was revealed that potential staff intending to relocate to the region to take up positions, after successfully navigating the recruitment process and accepting the role, were unable to as they couldn’t find somewhere to live or stay on a long-term basis. The members in this conversation were primarily from the Health and Community sector, which just happens to be the largest industry in the region* and also the sector that’s experiencing a significant labour shortage.

In an article in today’s Examiner, the private rental market has been described as near impenetrable [with a] vacancy rate that’s basically 1% and according to a table published with the report, 51% of houses sold in the last quarter were to 2+ Home Buyers.

While the Tasmanian Government has a plan to increase housing supply, which will increase housing affordability, what can be done to house skilled migrants who are needed in our region?

• It’s been suggested that more student accommodation in the CBD could free up housing in the northern suburbs.
   
• Inner City Living or Infill projects like those underway by Chamber members such as Tas City Building, and S. Group could be a path forward. (Stay tuned for future Infill-related news).
   
• Is there potential for hostel-style accommodation for incoming skilled migrants? Keeping in mind the construction industry in Tasmania is currently at capacity (something it is hoped the TasTafe reforms will address) any construction will need to ‘join the queue’.

While there isn’t a clear solution at the moment, it is paramount that housing and accommodation isn’t an obstacle in the relocation of staff and skilled migrants to the region.

What are your thoughts on this issue?
Do you have any ideas you’d like to share to solve the problem?
Please let us know…

In our weekly eNewsletter dated the 21^st of October, we encouraged members to embrace a new mantra for modern times: Buy Local, Eat Local, Stay Local, Event Local and Support Local.

Today we’d like to focus on Support Local.

With one week and one month until Christmas (gasp!) our calendars are filling up, our ‘to do’ lists are getting longer and we’re all looking forward to a festive break. During this busy time it can be easy to overlook the less fortunate in our community. Thankfully we have some wonderful organisations in our community and amongst our membership that are there to assist the vulnerable people in our community.

Would you or your business like to support local at this time of year? There are a number of ways we can suggest:

• St. Vincent de Paul Society are running their annual Christmas Appeal, where for as little as $40 you can help deliver hope and the Christmas Spirit in the form of nourishing meals, hot drinks and snacks via their Soup Vans.
   
• City Mission are also running their annual Christmas Appeal, where your donation will help provide meals, grocery supplies, food vouchers, clothing and household goods to those in need. It also assists with purchasing Christmas gifts for families.
   
• The Examiner has launched their 113^th Empty Stocking Appeal to raise funds for those in need via their charity partners – the Benevolent Society, the Salvation Army, City Mission and St Vincent de Paul. All funds raised are passed on to these organisations and as it says in the launch article; …every cent makes a difference to someone’s life. It can be the difference between a smile or a tear for someone this December.
   
• The Launceston City Community Christmas, a city-wide Christmas lunch event hosted by a number of community organisations in partnership with the City of Launceston are seeking donations and volunteers. The Launceston City Community Christmas provides families and individuals with the opportunity to connect, provide encouragement and build community at Christmas. Last year saw approximately 250 seats filled with people who may have had a much lonelier Christmas.
   
• Another opportunity to support local, that’s very close to our hearts, would be to support the David Peach Fund. The David Peach Fund is part of the Men’s Table charity, a charity that creates a unique environment for men to share openly about their lives, their challenges, their highs and lows with a group of men who they learn to trust and accept.

Please consider supporting local this festive season.