‘The G’ Awarded Government Funding

The Mount Gambier Hotel will receive a $336,740 grant from the Tourism Industry Development Fund (TDIF) to help redevelop the iconic South East hotel.

It makes up one of 42 projects approved to date, with a combined value of $25 million spread across all 11 of South Australia’s tourism regions.

Matthews Hospitality CEO, Andrew Kemp, said the funding will assist Matthews Hospitality to develop tourism infrastructure on the Limestone Coast and support the region’s “homegrown heroes”.

The South Australian family-owned hotels group owns a number of venues across SA, including four in Mount Gambier – the Mount Gambier Hotel (‘The G’), Colhurst House B&B, South Eastern Hotel and Park Hotel.

The $336,740 grant will go towards the $1,122,500 refurbishment of the Mount Gambier Hotel, which will include accommodation upgrades and facilitate the creation of local tours and overnight tourism packages.

“Matthews Hospitality venues have played an integral role in the Limestone Coast community for more than 75 years,” Andrew said.

“This funding will allow us to champion the region’s tourism experiences and local businesses – our ‘homegrown heroes’ – to grow visitation to Mount Gambier.

“We are designing a series of tours including highlights of the Limestone Coast and a tour for food lovers that will take visitors directly to the doorstep of local food and wine businesses.

“Visitors will discover a range of produce including ice-cream made from camels’ milk in Mt Benson. Kalangadoo organic apples, beers from the Robe Town Brewery and wines from the Coonawarra region, to name a few.

“The accommodation upgrades and tours will go handin-hand, encouraging more visitors to Mount Gambier to enjoy the world-class experiences and produce the Limestone Coast has to offer.

“We thank the South Australian Government for its support which will directly benefit Mount Gambier and the Limestone Coast region.”

Premier Steven Marshall said the TIDF is giving regional economies a real boost, creating nearly 700 jobs to date.

“One of the key aims of the TIDF is to create new jobs and develop skills and with project applications flooding into the SATC, this number will continue to rise,” he said.

“We know from the latest Tourism Research Australia data that January 2021 has been the best month since the pandemic began. Visits, nights and expenditure were the highest for a month since March 2020.

“These results are on the back of a strong intrastate market and recovering interstate market so it’s great that we’ve got a pipeline of new and exciting experiences to keep visitors coming back to our regions.

“All of our 42 TIDF projects will give visitors a multitude of reasons to travel to South Australia and our regions to boost our economy.”

Matthews Hospitality CEO, Andrew Kemp