More than 32,000 people visited this October’s Melbourne Leisurefest, inspecting the vast displays of caravan, camping, 4WD and outdoors products and accessories.
“Children had loads of fun with the Caravanning Explorers’ Club and rides, fishermen loved the 15x3m Yamaha Supertank demonstrations and everybody enjoyed going back in time with the vintage caravan displays,” Rob Lucas, CEO of the Caravan Industry Association Victoria (CIA VIC), said.
The event began at sunrise on October 6 with the official opening of the show and the launch of the ‘Service Safe’ program. A contingent of industry media attended morning tea and was then taken on a tour of the show, visiting selected exhibitor sites releasing new products to the market.
“The ‘Service Safe’ accreditation program has been developed for our service and repair members, delivering better training and providing a higher level of customer service,” Mr Rob said.
One of the features of this year’s show was the AL-KO ESC swerve and recovery test down the main straight of Sandown Raceway, with motorsport driver Beck Connell performing over 300 test drives with show goers in the passenger seat. Show visitors were also given the opportunity to test drive certain types of RVs.
“Learning to tow a caravan or drive a motorhome does not have to be daunting and this year the association teamed up with Driver Dynamics to give consumers the opportunity to test drive a range of recreational vehicles, making them feel at ease in the driver’s seat,” Mr Lucas said.