Discovery Centre gains grant funding



Friday 29 July 2011

Discovery Centre gains grant funding

The Daintree Discovery Centre is one of 117 organisations across Australia to receive funding from the Australian Government as part of $8.5 million in tourism grants recently announced.

The grant of $30,500 is being used to purchase multi-language audio visual guide units for visitors.

The purchase will allow the Centre to cater for a wider range of visitors and aims to enrich their experience by offer tours in Chinese, the introduction of an Aboriginal tour, and the development of an interactive children’s cassowary conservation audio tour.

Minister for Tourism, Martin Ferguson, said the grants will help to lift the quality and variety of Australia’s tourism experiences.

"Most of the grants are in regional Australia where tourism is an important economic driver – in fact 46 cents of every tourism dollar is spent in regional Australia," Minister Ferguson said.

"The challenge for regional tourism destinations is in attracting increasingly time poor visitors out of the gateway cities. These grants will help better position those businesses and organisations who are looking to expand, modify or diversify their product or service to be even more appealing for city dwellers and international visitors.

"By providing matching funding to investors, the Australian Government is not only seeking to address the market failure but support the almost one million Australians directly and indirectly employed in the $34 billion tourism industry."

The Minister Assisting on Tourism, Senator Nick Sherry, said the projects funded by the grants gave travellers more reasons to see even more of Australia.

"People will keep coming back if they know they’re getting better and fresher attractions, products and services," Senator Sherry said.