As a tourist town we rely heavily on Government funded bodies such as Tourism Australia, Tourism Queensland, and our local organisation, Tourism Port Douglas and Daintree to attract visitors to the area.


But how many of us really know about the work they undertake, and more importantly, the results they achieve.


Below is a statement from Tourism Queensland which makes for interesting reading. It talks of the importance of the tourism industry to Queensland, the current climate, and their latest achievements.

We invite you to take the time to read their report, make your own assumptions, ask questions, and comment on your experiences with TQ (if any) at the end of the piece. But most importantly be objective. After all, our tourism industry deserves to see results from our representative bodies.


Tourism Queensland's report


There is no doubt that so far 2010 has been a challenging year for not just Tropical North Queensland but Queensland’s tourism industry more broadly.
 

As it stands, tourism contributes $9.2 billion to the Queensland economy and accounts for 23 percent of Australia’s tourism gross domestic product. The industry is made up of 115,500 registered tourism businesses, which represent 28.5 percent of all businesses in Queensland. The industry also directly employs 122,600 Queenslanders or 25 percent of Australia’s total tourism jobs.
 

So it’s no secret that tourism is a critical part of Queensland’s communities and it’s important for us to know how to manage its future impact, while keeping in mind local priorities and community feedback.
 

In many ways the industry has been dealing with a unique situation not only have we been combating the effects of the global financial crisis, a series of unpredictable weather events, coal ships on our reef etc, we are also having to compete against the strength of our own Australia dollar and find new and unique ways to position the destination.
 

Despite declines in some markets Tourism Queensland has witnessed good growth in younger travellers from the UK, Germany, France and the Netherlands all increased at a higher rate than the national average. Further UK visitors were up 1%, German visitors up 10%, French up 22%, China was also up 9%. 


This is a strong indication that Tourism Queensland’s Best Job in the World campaign is having an impact as these are some of the markets most supportive of the campaign.
 

Tropical North Queensland in particular is also seeing some good growth domestically out of the key Victorian market. In the year ending March 2010 Tropical North Queensland welcomed 157,000 Melbournians travelling to the region for a holiday which was an increase of 28 percent.


During the same time period the region welcomed 1.5 million Australians, who stayed just over eight million nights, four percent more visitors and 17 percent more nights than during the previous year. Of these 813,000 (54 percent) came for a holiday, three percent more than during the previous year. Overall, visitors spent $1.8 billion, an increase of $452 million.
 

In response to the tough operating climate Tropical North Queensland tourism operators are working within, Tourism Queensland has responded and supported the industry with a series of aggressive hard-hitting tactical marketing campaigns designed to drive bookings and put much-needed dollars straight into our tourism operators’ pockets. This tactic has proved extremely successful.
 

Tourism Queensland works with a variety of wholesalers for not just for state but also regional campaigns including, Qantas Holidays, Sunlover, Blue Holidays and FC Infinity. These key partners help to bring cooperative marketing dollars to the table and our joint investment assists us to boost the bottom dollar.
 

While wholesalers are very important industry partners, the world is changing and we are increasingly investing in direct consumer marketing activities through sites such as wotif.com and digital marketing activity through Queensland Holidays.
 

As a state tourism office we have an obligation to drive consumer demand through not only brand activity but also tactical marketing campaigns.
 

As such we are working on diversifying markets for regions such as Tropical North Queensland, continuing development in cruise, education, business and incentives to broaden our scope beyond purely the leisure and visiting friends and family markets. 
 

In the 2009-2010 financial year Tourism Queensland also achieved more than $71 million in relevant publicity exposure for the region.
 

In addition to Tourism Queensland’s work with wholesalers we also work closely with regional airports and aviation partners to secure major aviation wins for the region. Fundamentally it’s about increasing access and shoring up demand. Some wins out of our major international and domestic markets during the past year include:
 

• China Southern Airlines flights from Guangzhou city to Cairns which ran in February from the 11 – 15 each carrying up to 375 people.

• In March the Virgin Blue Group introduced a new international service between Auckland and Cairns.

• Virgin Blue’s New Zealand-based international airline, Pacific Blue, is now also operating a twice weekly flight, which is scheduled on Tuesdays and Saturdays, with the airline committing a Boeing 737-800 aircraft, representing a 79% increase in available seats on the route.

• In addition Continental Airlines flights operated a daily service from Guam to Cairns from March 17 – April 6 to meet an increased demand from Japan and Guam. This daily service connects Guam to and the nine Japanese cities which Continental services.

• From the beginning of April Tropical North Queensland received 17 new flights per week from Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and Perth, adding just over 3000 weekly seats and potential visitors to the region.

• April arrivals also included the resumed direct flights between Osaka in Japan – Cairns. Four weekly Jetstar flights will add up to 1200 seats for the region per week which equates to approximately 63,000 seats per year.

• In July, Jetstar’s announcement to fly a new Auckland-Cairns route three times a week was great news for the regional tourism industry. The new services scheduled to commence in April 2011 will add more than 500 seats into the region from New Zealand each week. It represents a 47 percent increase in international seat capacity from New Zealand to Cairns.

• More recently Jetstar announced that it would further expand its domestic capacity to Cairns by almost 30 percent from early 2011 which is great news for tourism in Tropical North Queensland. This announcement included additional daily services from Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane and would build to a daily return Gold Coast – Cairns service, contributing more than 4425 additional seats to the region’s domestic capacity each week and represents an additional 25 weekly return services to Cairns.

While Tourism Queensland is primarily a marketing based organisation, the team also undertakes a range of industry development initiatives to assist tourism operators.  For example:
 

Conversations with TQ – Over the past few months Tourism Queensland has been hosting a series of workshops for Queensland tourism operators to meet with Tourism Queensland’s key decision makers to  discuss tourism priorities for the year ahead. These forums also give Tourism Queensland the opportunity to talk about  how we can work cooperatively with the local tourism industry on our  activities.
 

Other examples of opportunities where Tourism Queensland has provided workshops for operators include:
 

Tourism Queensland’s International Marketing Briefings -  give operators market intelligence on Queensland’s key international tourism markets “Straight from the horse’s mouth”.
 

Weatherproofing your business workshops –  teach operators how to deal with extreme weather events that Queensland is can be occasionally prone to.
 

Sustainable regions program – first state-wide sustainable tourism project implemented in Australia which aimed to reduce the environmental impact of tourism and encourage visitors to view Queensland as a more  sustainable tourism destination. The program was piloted in five Queensland regions and will be rolled out in other regions later this  year.
 

Social and environmental indicators –  during the year Tourism Queensland has also  conducted the ‘Your Community’ survey for the first time, which examined Queensland  residents’ views on the social impacts of tourism on their community.


The intention of the survey was to guide state and local authorities in their  decision-making process on tourism development. At the same time a Tourism Queensland- commissioned survey engaged a range of tourism operators from across the state to gauge their attitudes towards, commitment to, and  implementation of environmental practices.


So there you have it. Now it's time to tell us your thoughts and experiences. Feel free to pose questions that we can pass on to TQ and TPDD.