Business Plan and Business Case for Australian Garden

Business Plan and Business Case for the Australian Garden

Royal Botanic Gardens (RGB) proposed to develop the "Australian Garden', a uniquely Australian garden interpreting Australian flora and landscapes, near Cranbourne, south-east of Melbourne. In 1998 SGS helped RGB develop a business plan setting the strategy for the development and marketing of the gardens as a major tourist and leisure recreation attraction. SGS carried market research and economic feasibility analysis, to inform the plan.

In 2001 RBG again retained SGS, to review the Business Plan. As a result of a change in Government, the RBG needed to determine the impact on the Australian Garden's overall tourism offer if it was developed in stages, as opposed to a single stage project. To this end, SGS facilitated focus groups and administered face-to-face interviews to determine the attractiveness of alternative options to consumers, and the community willingness to pay for each option. These results were translated into a financial impact statement and a preliminary cost benefit analysis.

Australian Garden Stage 1, a fee for entry recreation and cultural experience including 100,000 Australian native plants in many different landscape displays, was almost completed by 2005. RGB was planning for Stage 2 to complete the story of the progression of the Australian Garden from central Australia to the eastern seaboard with its coastal, urban focus and was seeking funding from State Government. RGB commissioned SGS to undertake an assessment of Stage 2 to support an ERC funding submission. For this Business Case, SGS updated the financial and cost-benefit analysis, reviewing the substantive background work already done (including three previous studies carried out by SGS). SGS later updated the 2005 information in the Business Case, when more recent data became available.

The Australian Garden Stage 1 opened in 2006, and construction of Stage 2 is underway.