The upcoming year presents the greatest opportunity our destination has ever had to influence international visitors to choose Cairns & Great Barrier Reef for their next holiday.
Thanks to the Federal Government’s $15 million marketing funding for the next two years we can take control of rebuilding our key international markets to drive visitor expenditure to $5 billion by 2025, four years ahead of the 2021 forecasts.
Our destination showed what we could do when the Federal Government invested in our domestic marketing and we rapidly grew expenditure to a record $4.4 billion in 2022. The TTNQ Board has set bold goals to see similar success in our key international markets.
TTNQ has assembled a global team to take the Cairns & Great Barrier Reef story to the world and we want the industry to be part of that narrative.
Our international marketing will have a strategic focus on trade engagement, activities and content to support Tourism Australia and Tourism Events Queensland, partnering with aviation and trade to drive conversion, and global publicity.
We want to maintain our position as the most searched regional destination in Australia, achieve year-round average accommodation occupancy of more than 70%, and restore total aviation passenger numbers by 2025.
Our market share of Queensland visitor nights needs to be maintained above 11.5% and we must grow our market share in business events to attain our $5 billion goal within two years.
The Cairns & Great Barrier Reef destination’s success will be greatly influenced by the support of TTNQ’s members.
Using industry feedback we have adopted a new membership model to better accommodate member needs as we work together to rebuild our industry and become a global leader in tropical holiday and event experiences.
TTNQ now has two membership levels to help grow the business events industry. The Partner of Business Events is for members wanting to work with our region’s convention bureau, the Business Events Cairns & Great Barrier Reef team.
Those wanting to become key players in driving our Business Events strategy and winning key events for the region can step up to be a Leader of Business Events. This membership level includes six monthly roundtable meetings with the General Manager and airfare support for an annual Business Events famil for your clients.
We have also introduced new bundles to help tourism businesses wanting to target growth in the international and cruise markets.
There are just 20 International Accelerator Bundles available for Partner of Tourism members wanting to launch their business to international trade and develop their product offering for different international markets.
With more than 125 cruises due to dock in Cairns, we have 36 Cruise Bundles available to help your product gain greater exposure in this growing market.
Please reach out to TTNQ Industry Relations Manager Georgie Sadler to discuss these opportunities to grow your business.
Thank you for your support during the past year. The TTNQ team and I look forward to a productive working relationship with you in the coming financial year as we deliver the destination vision to be a global leader in nature-based and ecotourism, driving visitor spend.
Cheers,
Mark Olsen
Chief Executive Officer