The tourism industry of Tropical North Queensland welcomes the ALP commitment and seeks bipartisan support for a $10 million investment over four years to drive our region’s recovery and the future growth of tourism in Queensland.
Tropical North Queensland is Australia’s most international tourism region, an industry that generates more than $1.4 billion in tax revenue per annum.
International aviation capacity is still returning to Cairns and will need ongoing destination marketing focused on conversion to ensure these routes are successful and grow visitor numbers for Queensland. This funding makes that possible. Investment from the State Government over the next four years will allow Tourism Tropical North Queensland to deliver targeted marketing activities to support those aviation routes and grow international tourism to Queensland.
We still have a long way to go to regain our pre-pandemic international holiday visitors that are only just over halfway back to the 2019 figures when international visitor nights made up 38% of total visitor nights in our region.
More than 84% of international visitors arriving in Tropical North Queensland this year went on to visit multiple regions in our State showing that our region is a great partner for other destinations to drive visitation to Queensland.
TTNQ has generated more than $130 million in sales in the past 12 months through the Federal Government’s investment in destination marketing, delivering a 47:1 return from the 52 campaigns already completed.
This commitment will allow the region to keep that momentum going as our international flights resume in 2025 and to drive demand for strong future growth for Queensland as we enter the green and gold runway to the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Cheers,
Mark Olsen
Chief Executive Officer