CEO & Board Updates

TTNQ’s members were given an invaluable update on where the tourism industry is heading at the 2025 My Queensland TNQ Tourism Conference held at the Pullman Reef Hotel Casino yesterday with more than 120 delegates attending.

Tourism Tropical North Queensland’s launch of the Lifetime of Greatness Project on World Earth Day has generated global publicity for the Great Barrier Reef with a media reach of more than 60 million so far and we want to make sure our members benefit from this success story.

Promoting the Great Barrier Reef as an international icon that everyone should visit in their lifetime is critical to its future protection and the prosperity of the many regional communities that this World Heritage area supports.

Tourism Tropical North Queensland’s members are front and centre of our engagement with tourism trade partners around the world this month through webinars and face-to-face appointments as we approach the end of our Federally funded campaign activity.

Global expectations are rising for the tourism industry to move beyond providing experiences to ensuring tourism is sustainable and contributing to the future of our natural environments and our communities.   

Happy New Year – just a few weeks in and 2025 is already feeling more promising than the devastation that Tropical North Queensland was facing last year.

As this tumultuous year comes to an end, it is time to reflect on the great progress we have made as a collective towards our ambitious goal of reaching $5 billion of visitor spend.

Tourism Tropical North Queensland welcomes the new Minister for the Environment and Tourism, and Minister for Science and Innovation Andrew Powell to the Queensland Cabinet.

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.

With little more than five weeks until we head to the State Government polls, Tourism Tropical North Queensland is asking all candidates to support the recovery of Tropical North Queensland to ensure Queensland is a powerhouse for Australian tourism growth over the next four years.

The Business Events sector is setting multiple records for Tropical North Queensland with record visitation and record leads playing an ongoing key role in the region’s recovery.

Early results from TTNQ’s global campaigns are showing an incredible 37:1 return on investment with $82 million in overnight visitor expenditure already reaped from 51 international campaigns and another 44 campaigns yet to be reported on.

Team Tropical North Queensland held more than 7000 appointments to promote the destination in Melbourne last week at the Australian Tourism Exchange 2024. Our destination was represented at 48 booths with 86 delegates attending the four days of trade appointments and events, in addition to meetings with aviation partners and media.

Tropical North Queensland’s events calendar is in full swing with 100 community heroes from across the country attending the world-first Savannah Sounds on the Reef featuring Sheppard and Lee Kernaghan at the Reef Magic pontoon on Saturday.

The new Singapore Airlines A350 service touched down in Cairns this week bringing with it the opportunity to progress Tropical North Queensland’s international recovery.

TTNQ has launched a Sustainability Leaders Group as part of our vision for Tropical North Queensland to be the leader in ecotourism in Australia and our mission for every visitor to leave our destination as a custodian of the region’s stories.

With Cape Tribulation still inaccessible, forward bookings in Port Douglas well down and Cairns still behind previous years, it is essential that everything gets thrown at helping Tropical North Queensland tourism operators who face a very tough end of summer season.

Tourism Tropical North Queensland has been advocating for industry support since 10 December when Tropical Cyclone Jasper was looming and to date we have done more than 40 media appearances to let decision-makers and visitors know where help is needed.

Tourism Tropical North Queensland has launched our first global trade campaigns for the Cairns & Great Barrier Reef brand partnering with Expedia and Trip.com for activity in seven key international markets. The global campaigns are among more than 20 campaigns utilising the Federal Government’s $15 million International Tourism Recovery Program funding.

Cairns & Great Barrier Reef received a resounding thumbs up from the 300 Aussie Specialists at G’Day Australia at the Cairns Convention Centre last week, while familiarisation tours before and after the event generated $2 million for Tropical North Queensland’s visitor economy.

The positive impact of tourism on the environment and local community was emphasised at TTNQ’s first international media showcase in Japan last week attended by 25 Japanese media.

There is much excitement in the industry about the prospect of the return of Tropical North Queensland’s once-strong Chinese visitor numbers before Chinese New Year after a week of good news from the China market.

Tropical North Queensland’s international recovery is well underway with the significant milestone of 10,000 passengers reached earlier this month, marking the busiest week for Cairns’ international terminal since February 2020.

High-spending Sydney visitors helped to grow interstate travel to Tropical North Queensland for the year ending March 2023 generating a $2.6 billion boost to the economy, according to Tourism Research Australia’s National Visitor Survey figures released today.

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.

We are nearly half way through the Year of Accessible Tourism and I am delighted to see more operators thinking about how they can be more inclusive. Congratulations to Quicksilver Dive in Port Douglas on becoming the first PADI Adaptive Service Facility in Queensland opening up scuba to people with varying levels of mobility.

Cairns & Great Barrier Reef has an enormous legacy in China thanks to the long-established relationships with our operators and TTNQ’s active engagement over many years. This was demonstrated in the warm reception that China Sales and Marketing Manager Harriet Ganfield and I received as part of the Team Queensland Mission to China.

Global Meetings Day was celebrated on 30 March, coinciding with a milestone week in the recovery of the business events industry for Tropical North Queensland where we showcased our destination’s capabilities to host sustainable meetings, conferences and incentives.

The announcement that Cairns will host Tourism Australia’s mega event G’Day Australia bringing more than 300 Aussie Specialists into our region in October is exciting news that will assist with the destination’s international recovery.

Tourism is all about working together as an industry to market a destination and I’m pleased to see more evidence of this as 2023 unfolds. Collaboration, networking and partnerships are key to maximising opportunities and stretching valuable marketing dollars even further in a very crowded global marketplace.

China’s announcement that its border would open on January 8 was a welcome New Year surprise bringing instant optimism that international travel would have a better chance of rebounding in the coming year.

Virgin Australia will launch direct flights from Tokyo’s Haneda Airport to Cairns from 28 June 2023 bringing more than 30,000 additional visitors to Tropical North Queensland as a result of the first Cairns Airport deal through the Queensland Government’s $200 million Attracting Aviation Investment Fund.

Budget night last week was one of the more memorable in my career as I received the call from Senators Don Farrell and Nita Green finally confirming that our destination would receive the promised $15 million in international destination marketing funds over the next three years.

A strong majority of local government representatives have put their support behind further investigation of an opt-in visitor levy for local governments with 85% of attendees at the Queensland Local Government Conference voting for it in Cairns yesterday.

Visitors with accessibility challenges account for some 15-20% of global tourism. Research by Tourism Australia has shown that accessible tourism can be a game changer for destinations that will assist with post-pandemic recovery by building industry resilience.

TTNQ and 22 member businesses were the largest contingent at Tourism Australia’s Marketplace North America this month, meeting with 80 trade representatives to promote Cairns & Great Barrier Reef.