At least 75 people participated in Saturday night's interest forum at the Golf club to discuss ways and means of increasing the financial climate of Lightning Ridge.
Organised by the local Rotary Club, member and co-facilitator Herman Kreller said the forum was held to counteract the continuing decline in the local economy.
He said this could be seen by the increasing number businesses that were closing and the empty shop front windows replacing them.
Mr Kreller said the forum had resulted in some direction and produced a number of ways the town could increase its economic fortunes.
He said the forum had uncovered the aim of keeping tourists in the town for more days by developing other interesting activities for them to do while here.
Mr Kreller said the community hoped to be able to do that by creating a place where tourists could see some mining equipment, both old and modern.
He said the town would supply a large genuine fossicking area, with reasonable opal clay close to town.
Mr Kreller said the community was also hoping to have some of the old mining camps reconstructed close to the town.
He said members of the community also identified the need to increase tourism as important.
"We want to target hundreds of individual hobby groups, sporting clubs, associations, organisations, companies, special interest groups, caravanning and motor home clubs, service clubs and districts to hold their meetings and conferences here."
He said participants at the forum also pointed out the need to develop and promote children's holiday camps and excursions with suitable activities.
"The Opal and Fossil Centre we want to get built here should also help attract more people to the Ridge," he said.
Mr Kreller said members of the community also wanted to work on developing the bore baths, sign posting on the Castlereagh Highway at the Cumborah turn-off, and the construction of public amenities in the town.
He said a concern to some local people was the airport's runway length, and the need to extend this for more planes to be able to land safely.
"There is also the need for us to provide transport to and from the airport as well," he said.
Mr Kreller said Lightning Ridge needed to be made an exciting place for visitors to come to, and the implementation of a tourist drive with explanatory cassettes and video clips would be trialed.
"Of course to be able to do all these things the community would need money."
Several committee members of the Lightning Ridge Tourist Association attended Rotary's interest forum.
Association president John Murray said as a relatively new committee they were in the process of revising the black and white tourist map to include tourist attractions, items of interest and a map of the local area.
"We are aiming to encourage tourists to stay longer by giving them ideas on what else they can do in the area.
"We are in the process of developing a coloured tourist brochure specifically for Lightning Ridge, which will be distributed to all the groups working with this committee to promote the whole route," he said.
Mr Murray said there were several committees in Lightning Ridge, which were working hard and focused on different aspects of development within the town.
He said the Tourist Association would be calling a meeting of the chairpersons of all the committees to discuss what each committee was doing and be made available for members of the Association to promote their businesses.
"We are developing our website which will eventually include a directory of all our members and the services they offer, the tourist map and colour brochure will also be available to download from the site," he said.
"Lightning Ridge is on the Great Inland Way and we will also be working with this committee to promote the whole route," he said.
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