What do you love about our region that you are looking forward to sharing with your mates when travel restrictions ease?
Over the next six weeks, Tourism Tropical North Queensland and The Cairns Post will be sharing stories about what makes our destination special and what experiences you can have as a local in the Cairns and Great Barrier Reef region.
The Cairns Post Backyard Tourist features will also be published in The Tablelander, the Port Douglas Gazette, the Innisfail Advocate, and cairnspost.com.au. As we get closer to being allowed to travel overnight, Backyard Tourist will be published in The Townsville Bulletin, Herbert River Express and Burdekin Advocate and extend to Townsville, Bowen and then link to our campaign in South East Queensland through June and July.
TTNQ needs to know what experiences you are offering to local visitors as travel restrictions ease so we can promote travel within our region. TTNQ is keen to get the details of what your business is offering in the recovery phase. These can be submitted here.
Make sure your business is ready to begin operating safely under the new COVID-19 restrictions by:
- Ensure you are complying with the Safe Work Australia checklists;
- Prepare your own COVID-Safe Workplace plan and ensure you are meeting the guidelines provided by the State Government for hospitality venues here and;
- Share your plan with QTIC / TTNQ so that it can to feed into the Statewide COVID-Safe Plan being prepared for Queensland Health / CMO
From midnight Friday, May 15 restrictions will ease to allow gatherings of up to 10 people in a public space, dining for up to 10 people at a time and recreational travel within a 150km radius from your home.
Next month, on June 12 at midnight these numbers will increase to 20, and overnight recreational travel to accommodation and campgrounds is allowed within a 250km radius. Tourism experiences can operate under certain conditions from this date. Read the Roadmap to easing Queensland’s restrictions to find out what is allowed.
We are also asking for locals to share their favourite activity or place to visit in the region to help us with ideas. You can submit your ideas and photos here.
Our drivenorthqueensland.com.au campaign launched last week on WIN TV encouraging driving holidays when restrictions are lifted. Currently, the campaign is active from Townsville to Cairns, but as restrictions ease and borders open, the audience will include intrastate and interstate.
Drive North Queensland is a joint partnership between Tourism and Events Queensland, TTNQ, The Savannah Way, Cook Shire Council, Tropical Coast Tourism, Tourism Port Douglas Daintree – Industry, and Tropical Tablelands Tourism. The campaign has multiple stages including TV, print and digital activities.
We also continue the dreaming phase to ensure Cairns & Great Barrier Reef is top of mind for potential travellers. TTNQ’s Spellbound series in News Corp publications aims to inspire people to dream about a post-lockdown holiday in Cairns & Great Barrier Reef. Here is the first article.
The green shoots we have been hoping for in the tourism industry are starting to unfurl. I look forward to being able to move around and see our industry sharing our beautiful region with the people who live in it and love it as we progress down the road to recovery together.
Cheers
Mark Olsen
Chief Executive Officer
13 May 2020