Massive falls in stock markets around the world dominated headlines last week.

Losses of 4.8% on America's 500 share S&P 500 counter, 3.4% in the United Kingdom, more than 5% in Italy, and around 4.1% here have sparked fears that the Global Financial Crisis of a few years ago was just a preview of bigger and badder things to come.

Mention the 'Pilot Strike' and the 'GFC' and you will see tourism operators and other business owners shudder.

Since the GFC hit in 2008, around 150 Port Douglas businesses have closed. Add to this the high Australian dollar, the ultra-competitive Asian tourism market, and the highest unemployment rate in the country and you can excuse people for being a little glum.

So can we survive another GFC and what have the Council and our local tourism body learnt from 'Round 1'?

Division 10 councillor, Julia Leu, said Cairns Regional Council has done a lot in response to the GFC No.1.

"Since the GFC Council have been doing a whole raft of things.

"We have been looking very carefully at where we can stimulate our economy," she said.

"Diversification" is the term used to describe Council's policy, with Cr Leu saying there is an emphasis on events tourism, sports tourism, the Tropical Innovation Awards, cultural initiatives, and the revival of the construction industry.

"It's something that's on our agenda all the time. How can we make our policies and programs stimulate the economy," Cr Leu said.

Cr Leu said that the Council's current focus is on attracting new industries into the region by providing incentives, and a new policy is currently being passed to formalise the process.

Click here to see an interesting interpretation of US debt levels 

Chairman of Tourism Port Douglas and Daintree (TPDD), Gordon Welham, said that the response after the 2008 GFC helped the region remain viable.

"(TPDD) punched well above our weight in marketing across a number of broad fronts...the bang for the buck in what was achieved was pretty good.

"It was a centralised effort by TPDD to win market share, maintain market share. But also a lot of work was done by TPDD with membership, to help members push their own barrow (and) market their own product.
    
"And a lot of the members spent a lot of money to maintain and win market share, not only for themselves, but for the region."

Mr Welham added it wasn't the role of TPDD to advise its members of economic factors which may affect their businesses, such as the recent decline in stock values.

"That's beyond our roles and responsibilities. They've got a product, and we've got the sandwich boards out the front."

So back to the question - can the region survive another Global Financial Crisis?

"Definitely yes, without a doubt, without a doubt," Mr Welham said.

"We've gone through the pilot strike, we've been through the first GFC. We as a destination have been strengthened by it, we've got lessons learnt.

"There are a lot of good operators around who have proven themselves. But that won't hold true for every single operator.

"It's death by 1,000 cuts for a lot of people...But as a destination I'm very confident."

Mr Welham said that people are more frugal in times of economic uncertainty.

"There's a lot of consumer uncertainty, that's loud and clear. And their reaction to that (is that) they're banking their money. They're paying off their credit cards and housing debts. They're not using it for discretionary spending like holidays."

TPDD's executive officer, Doug Ryan, said the issue has been raised at a recent board meeting.

"The board held their strategy meeting about a month ago now. We actually have the chairman of Tourism Queensland sit on that.

"They discussed where we should go from here, there were some strategies put in place to try and protect our investment in the region.

These strategies revolve around flexibility in the group's marketing.

"If you look at Japan as an example with the tsunami or New Zealand, where all of a sudden half of it (the market) switches off, if you have got pre-arranged marketing commitments and many of them are prepaid well you can't pull them. And therefore that's basically money down the drain.

"One of our strategies is to have the ability to do more short term marketing, still concentrating on our major markets obviously, but in many cases taking advantage of different opportunities."

One thing is for certain, uncertainty in the markets is not good for business, especially if you rely so heavily on people having some spare cash in their pockets.

Click here to see an interesting interpretation of US debt levels

What are your thoughts? Do you think the region could survive another GFC? Comment below.