Tourism Queensland has released a range of holiday packages to celebrate entries opening for the Challenge Cairns event that was announced as part of the Cairns Adventure Festival to be held from June 2011.

Challenge Cairns will be the pinnacle event of the Cairns Adventure Festival that is planned to grow to include an ocean swim, mountain biking, adventure racing and triathlon in its early years.

Big name accommodation providers offering packages to lure visitors during the event include Sheraton Mirage, Mecure Treetops, Rydges Sabaya, and Thala Beach Lodge.

The package deals come as latest figures released from TQ show that Queensland is forecast to grow its domestic visitor nights (the number of nights in total interstate people spend in Queensland) by just 0.5% annually until 2020.  
    
Meanwhile, nearly 30 tourism operators are embarking on a European tour to promote Queensland over the next week.

The 'Queensland on Tour' trade mission, coordinated by TQ, will visit Munich, Paris, Amsterdam, Trier, Brussels, Zurich and Milan until 2 December.