Phillip Island is preparing to host its final MotoGP this month, with the race relocating to Adelaide from 2027. The event has contributed more than $80 million annually to the local economy, and its departure has prompted tourism leaders, businesses, and community members to explore new events and economic strategies for the region's future.
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Every October, the MotoGP round at Phillip Island draws riders and fans into the beachside town — many travelling in convoy — temporarily replacing its quieter rhythms with the noise and energy of international motorsport. Racing activity across that weekend feeds into the island's warmer-month visitor trade, with the World Superbikes event in February marking the point at which the calendar reaches its peak.
Cowes and the wider island community are set to stage their last MotoGP event of the current era later this month at the cliff-top venue, with the championship scheduled to relocate to Adelaide from 2027 onwards. Both commercial operators and local residents have faced tangible setbacks — financial pressures alongside personal ones — in the wake of the event.
Samantha Hampstead, who together with her husband Jason has operated a tattoo studio in Cowes across the past ten years, described holding the role of mayor at what turned out to be the final event as an experience that felt both unreal and deeply saddening. Both are members of Trust No One, a social motorcycle club, and together they help organise the yearly community convoy that marks the opening of the motoring weekend — an event she described as driven purely by a passion for riding, with the gathered mass of riders delivering an intensity unlike anything else.
Ms Hampstead described a rear-view mirror view that showed motorcycles lined up well beyond what she could see, and said that traders on the island typically treated the weekend as one of their busiest, with the rally having taken root as a fixture in the community's calendar.
Bass Coast Shire Council's former mayor Tessari, who spent part of the 1990s working at a caravan park on Phillip Island, recalled the atmosphere of the motorcycle event as one that left a lasting impression — describing traffic at a standstill on the bridge back to Wonthaggi, with people lighting barbecues and cooking sausages roadside while waiting, and noting that encounters like those tend to stay with a person long after the fact.
San Remo Fisherman's Co-Op chief executive Wolfgang Platzer noted that the Grand Prix draws visitor numbers to the island that would otherwise be unlikely to materialise, adding that a substantial share of those attendees discover the natural appeal of the area during their stay and leave with an interest in returning. Tourism accounts for a notably higher share of Phillip Island's economy than it does for other regions across the state.
Destination Phillip Island (DPI) puts the combined annual economic footprint of the World Superbikes and MotoGP events at upwards of $80 million. Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics puts the island's hospitality and lodging industry at the top of the employment table, responsible for close to four in every hundred jobs. Eating and drinking venues together rank as the economy's third-biggest source of jobs.
DPI chief executive Storey indicated that losing the event had brought forward the need to diversify the island's focus beyond motorsport, while also expressing the view that the track's contribution had been considerable. Storey told reporters that the MotoGP had given businesses a foundation of stability along with the resources to grow.
DPI pointed to three obstacles on the horizon — instability in the economy, the absence of key transport links such as a car ferry, and the threat H5N1 poses to local wildlife. Both DPI and Bass Coast Shire Council have put forward a joint request for state funding to support the creation of new tourism-driven events — among them a music gathering called The Hills are Alive, the Island Whale Festival, a hot springs attraction, and a motorsport festival drawing on the island's heritage.
Three contenders vying for the Bass seat — One Nation's Nikole Schellekens, Liberal hopeful Rochelle Halstead, and Labor's Chris Buckingham — fielded questions about the economic pledges each would bring to the island ahead of the November state election. Tourism's role in Phillip Island's future drew agreement from all three contenders, who also backed continued investment in the island's natural and built assets.
Speaking at the San Remo Fisherman's Co-Op, Platzer acknowledged that the loss of the race weighed on the community, though he expressed the view that focusing on practical alternatives would serve people better than dwelling on the disappointment.