PORT Pirie Regional Council is running a range of tourism projects aimed at attracting visitors from across the world and to promote holidaying 'in your own backyard' to locals.
Tourism coordinator Belinda Jackson says the council recently released a new Port Pirie and Southern Flinders Ranges Visitor Guide.
"The visitor guide started off focusing on Port Pirie and two years ago council decided to combine it with the Southern Flinders Ranges," she said.
"Before that, there wasn't a lot of visitor information available on the Southern Flinders region."
The council recently released a second version of the guide.
"It has information on 20 towns in the region," Belinda said. "While Port Pirie is the main focus, being the service centre for the region, the guide covers attractions and things to see and do across the region. It also contains a lot of information on the Mount Remarkable National Park, and features an events calendar, maps and photographs from throughout the region."
Belinda says that although the guide is aimed at visitors, the council finds that more locals are coming into the town's visitor centre and picking up a copy.
"It has a lot of ideas for day trips and things to do in the school holidays, which appeals to locals," she said. "A lot of locals are saying they didn't realise we had so many attractions in the region.
"While we only launched the guide in September and we've already had a lot of great feedback, especially from tourism operators."
The council has produced 40,000 copies of the guide.
"It's distributed to all the visitor information centres in the state, tourism businesses in the region and at events such as the Adelaide Caravan and Camping Show,'' Belinda said.
"We also have people contact us from interstate, and we send copies of the guide to them."
The council is also running a promotional Tourist In Your Town campaign.
* Full report in Stock Journal, October 30, 2014 issue.