BUSSELTON Jetty and Underwater Observatory (UWO) benefited significantly over the school holidays despite the Geographe Bay Tourism Association stating the midweek start and finish to holidays negatively affected bookings.
Busselton Jetty Environment and Conservation Association chief executive officer Daryl Green said the change in the school holiday calendar was a positive for jetty and UWO business.
"We found that the change in the timing of the school holidays was a positive for us because the volume of people was spread over three weeks rather than two weeks. So we had people for an additional week,” he said.
"A lot of people were taking three weeks holiday. Tourists came down before the school holidays started and some have stayed in the last week of holidays too.
"So it has been very positive for us over the Easter break and school holidays.”
Mr Green said an estimated 4000 people a day visited the jetty during the school holidays.
"Statistics show approximately 500 people a day booked tickets for the train and 600 people a day took a trip to the UWO,” he said.
"Tickets were completely sold out. For every person that was let in, we would’ve turned five people away for the train and observatory.”
He said the decision to start and finish school holidays mid-week helped.
"Because we sell out we only have so many we can sell. With the holidays being spread out, we could fit more people in.”
But Geographe Bay Tourism Association chief executive Matt Walker said the decision caused the industry to ultimately lose a week of holidays in terms of bookings after Easter.