Greater Geraldton Expenditure Analysis

LandCorp and City of Greater Geraldton

Regional cities are often quite concerned about expenditure leakage from their municipality to larger metropolitan areas. Some of this can’t (and probably shouldn’t) be helped. Certain goods and services (for example, the type you only need rarely) won’t be available in a smaller town or city, it is just not commercially viable to sell them when the local market is too small.

Nonetheless, some leakage can be addressed. And if you know the details (how much is being spent on what and where), this can reveal a local market opportunity. For example, if you know your residents spend $10 million a year on car tyres but buy them all from another city, you could probably attract a tyre retailer to your town. Until now economic models have been no good at this level of detail. They are based on big assumptions drawn from survey data usually covering the whole country. There is just too much guesswork from this to know exactly where these market opportunities are.

In this study we investigated business, consumer and government expenditure leakage from Greater Geraldton. We first look at bank transaction data to measure the leakage: how much and on what. Then we consulted with business and government to find out why (mostly because there just wasn’t enough local choice). From this we were able to present findings on where the real opportunities for investment attraction were. The project ultimately led to the development of Spendmapp (spendmapp.com.au).