How I Helped Shape Greater Geelong and The Bellarine's First Agritourism Roadmap
Victoria leads the country in agritourism. The state accounts for 30% of all agritourism trips nationally, and the sector generated $20.3 billion in visitor spend across the country in 2024. Agritourism visitors spend significantly more per trip than the average domestic traveller, stay longer, and spread their dollars more widely across a region.
For tourism bodies, that kind of visitor is exactly who you want. But attracting them takes more than good produce and a scenic drive. It takes a clear strategy.
That was the challenge facing Tourism Greater Geelong & The Bellarine (TGGB), one of Victoria's four major food bowl regions recognised by Tourism Australia. The region had genuine strengths: a diverse producer base, an established food and wine scene, and strong local character.
What it did not have was a shared direction for its agritourism sector. No framework. No roadmap. No common language to build from.
My Role
TGGB engaged me to research the sector, facilitate industry consultation, identify the key priorities and challenges, and produce a strategic recommendations document to guide their next steps.
The relationship started simply. I reached out to Jarred Parsons, TGGB's Strategy and Operations Manager, in August 2025 while planning a trip to Geelong. What began as a coffee to discuss the regional food and wine landscape turned into a project that neither of us quite anticipated.
The Process
Research and Preparation
Before I spoke to a single operator, I built the evidence base. National agritourism data, the region's competitive position within Victoria, and a map of what was already working locally. That groundwork is not glamorous but it is what makes the conversations that follow useful. You walk into a room knowing what the data says.
Industry Consultation
I facilitated a day of roundtables with operators from across the region. Twenty businesses, different stages of development, different views on what the sector needed. My job was to design a session that drew out what people actually thought (not just what they were comfortable saying in a group). The honest frustrations, the real opportunities, the ideas sitting just beneath the surface.
Strategic Framework Development
From the research and consultation, I developed the initial strategic framework and co-authored the first draft roadmap with TGGB. That document gave the project its structure, translating a day of conversation and months of research into something the team could test with their stakeholders and build from.
What TGGB Built From There
From early 2026, Jarred Parsons and the TGGB team took the lead. They integrated the framework into their existing tourism plans, ran a 13-week public consultation process, and refined the roadmap through multiple rounds of stakeholder feedback.
It was genuine co-creation. I got the project going and gave it its foundation. The TGGB team did the heavy lifting to bring it across the line.
The Agritourism Roadmap 2026–2029 launched at the Tourism Together Conference on 5 August 2026. The region's first dedicated agritourism strategy, built over eight months with real industry input behind it.
The Outcome
The measure of a good planning process is not just the document you end up with. It is whether the people it is designed to serve recognise themselves in it.
In this case, they did. The consultation process drew strong endorsement from operators and stakeholders, with survey results showing 100% of respondents agreeing with the proposed agritourism experience themes. The roadmap is built around priorities that operators identified themselves, which is exactly what creates genuine commitment rather than polite compliance.
That foundation is what will drive visitation and operator growth as the plan moves into delivery.
“Holly brought depth across food, wine and tourism, and understood the realities facing producers and operators. She built that into the structure of the workshop, so conversations moved quickly beyond theory to practical opportunities. People felt heard, and that trust led to honest, constructive discussion.
What stood out most was Holly's ability to listen, challenge ideas and bring different perspectives together into a clear, actionable framework. The result is a Roadmap that reflects the ambitions and experience of our industry, because the people who will use it helped shape it.”
— Jarred Parsons, Strategy & Operations Manager, Tourism Greater Geelong & The Bellarine
Why It Matters
Food, wine and tourism is not a sector I dip in and out of. It is where I have spent my career, and that depth matters when you are sitting in a room with producers, asking them the questions that shape a regional strategy.
The most valuable thing I do as a consultant is not provide answers. It’s ask better questions. And in this project, asking the right questions early meant the client ended up with something considerably bigger and more useful than the brief originally called for.
If you are a regional tourism organisation, a food and wine body, or a producer group working out where agritourism fits in your future, I would welcome a conversation.
Let's talk about your strategy
Services: Sector Research · Stakeholder Facilitation · Strategic Framework Development · Roadmap Co-Creation
Sector: Regional Tourism · Agritourism
Region: Greater Geelong & The Bellarine, Victoria