Budget Night Boost for Caravan Parks with Infrastructure Grant Program Funding

Caravan Industry Association of Australia welcomed last night’s federal budget with the announcement of Caravan Park Infrastructure Upgrade Funding.

The announcement of targeted infrastructure investment for the nation’s caravan parks will see a big shot in the arm for many park operators looking to build on the quality customer experiences already on offer across the country.

The announcement confirmed Labor’s pre-election commitment made to Caravan Industry Association of Australia to provide much needed infrastructure expenditure if elected in May 2022.

In the soon to be announced criteria for the Grant Program, caravan parks from around the country will be able to apply for funding to deliver shovel-ready projects. The heart of the program is to assist caravan parks to swiftly upgrade or create new infrastructure and visitor facilities to enhance the visitor experience, including improvements to accessibility and environmental sustainability practices.

Caravan Industry Association of Australia Chief Executive, Stuart Lamont, said this targeted Federal infrastructure support package recognised the growing and critical value of caravanning to Australia’s tourism and visitor economy.

“Caravanning has long been Australian domestic tourism’s largest visitor and economic cohort, an almost $24 billion economic driver in tourism and local manufacturing activity,” Mr Lamont said.

“This well-targeted funding will go directly into our world-leading caravan park product across the nation. We also believe it will extract private capital expenditure support up to 3 times over”.

“For caravan parks to be incentivised to deliver more attractive visitor amenities and appealing product is just the ticket to supporting sustainable recovery and growth in Australian tourism”.

“Caravan parks nationwide will keenly apply. The grants will develop new, appealing visitor product including cabins, recreation facilities and innovative features such as supporting accessible tourism”.

“As the national peak body for caravanning we strongly welcome this federal commitment, and we look forward to the release of the grant program and the application process in the coming days”.

Caravan Industry Association of Australia has been heavily involved in the criteria creation and we will continue to work with Austrade and the Minister’s office in the lead-up to an announcement of the final program criteria and application process. We look forward to being able to provide you with more information about an expected announcement in the coming weeks.