By Lili Cream
The Kalgoorlie Cup is one of the biggest events in the heart of The Goldfields.
“It’s a great day out,” said long time local Martin Cable, “for the locals, but even for the people who’ve left town. It’s a great weekend for them to come back and catch up with their friends.”
The Kalgoorlie Miner reported that attendance of The XXXX Gold sponsored Kalgoorlie Cup was at a high last year in 2017.
However, it seemed the crowd wasn’t quite as large this year at the event.
“It could be the weather we’ve had,” said Cable, “but there doesn’t seem to be the same amount of people turning up like it used to.”
Whilst the weather did rain havoc on the other events of the race round leading to the Kalgoorlie Cup, the costs of flights to Kalgoorlie could also be detrimental in the number of attendees at the event.
Whilst a flight from Perth to Kalgoorlie can be only 45 minutes long a fully refundable return ticket will set you back at least $1200 dollars.
This is not uncommon for regional flights within Western Australia, towns such as Port Hedland, Broome and Karratha also hold some of the highest prices for flights in Western Australia.
“Broome currently sits as the highest in Western Australia,” said Travel Agent Nicole Vrakking “return tickets at the least including taxes are currently $2500.”
“A fully refundable return ticket from London is at the least $4000.”
Perth to London is approximately a 17 hour flight, yet the nearly 3 hour flight to Broome is only $1500.
While the mining industry are driving up the price of the airfares, the council also imposes a landing tax included in your flight price.
For the City of Kalgoorlie Boulder, Mayor John Bowler states the $30 dollars included in the ticket price is for the benefit of the Kalgoorlie airport.
“The price we include on the ticket is for the maintenance of the airport,” said Mayor Bowler, “with that money we are able to lay down a new landing strip which is well needed at the airport.”
Whilst the $30 dollar’s included in the ticket is contributing to the expense of the ticket, it is not the cause of the problem.
The high demand of flights for mining companies is the reason for the expensiveness of the ticket, determined by the airline.
Cost of flights doesn’t seem to be completely cutting off tourism within the Goldfields, as Kalgoorlie-Boulder was named the GWN7 Top Tourism Town this September.
However, this seems to only be bringing in camper van tourism and missing potential at a larger amount of national and international visitors to the historical area.
This came to the attention of Liberal Member for Kalgoorlie Kyran O’Donnell.
“The price of flights being so high means we could be missing out on quite a few tourists,” said O’Donnell.
O’Donnell also noted however that the Goldfields could be missing out on tourists due to the fact the airport only runs direct flights to Perth, with the exception of one direct flight to Melbourne.
This could deter consumers as they most likely will not want to travel back to Perth after already visiting the area.
When it comes to the locals who may need to fly to Perth for emergency, Qantas does offer a cheaper deal.
Members of regional areas in Western Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory can have their airfares discounted by up to 30%.
They however must be apart of the Qantas Frequent Flyer program which they can join for free.
When it comes to the other airline that flies out of Kalgoorlie, Virgin, they don’t offer this deal however O’Donnell did meet with the airline earlier this year to discuss their prices.
“Virgin said that this wasn’t brought to their attention by anyone in the Goldfields beforehand,” said O’Donnell, “so hopefully we can work towards lowering prices with their airline.”
Advice Mr. O’Donnell offered, which was reiterated by travel agent Nicole Vrakking, was that people wanting to fly to the area should book in advance to grab cheaper flights.
“It’s just like if you were to fly on holiday to Bali,” said Mr. O’Donnell, “most times you don’t book the week before and you need to look for those cheaper flights.”