Figures have been released by Tourism Port Douglas and Daintree giving an insight into the operation of the local tourism body.

Presented at TPDD's AGM on Tuesday night, the figures show the organisation's income sources, as well as areas of expenditure including marketing activities from the 2010/11 financial year.

Chairman of TPDD, Gordon Wellham, told The Newsport that it was important they remain transparent due to the fact that a large percentage of their funding comes from rate payers via Cairns Regional Council.

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Council provided TPDD with $430,000 in 2010/11 while the organisation's membership base contributed a touch over $70,000 of the $582,000 income.

In the presentation to members at the AGM, executive officer Doug Ryan outlined the main Key Result Areas of TPDD which included the "Primary" objective of destination marketing, and the "Secondary" areas of:

• Destination development
• Industry representation and lobbying
• Product standards and continuing development
• Community and industry communications 

To achieve these areas, TPDD spent almost $423,000 on marketing activities including:

• $180,000 on domestic marketing (32%)
• $120,000 on international marketing (22%)
• $97,000 on "General Marketing" (18%)
• $22,000 on attracting business to the region (4%)
• $3,000 on the wedding market (1%)

"General marketing includes events such as Carnivale, it will include the Great Barrier Reef Marathon," Mr Ryan said.

"All the PR on whatever events we've got whether it be Challenge Cairns or whether it be the Coral Coast Triathlon, all those."

Mr Ryan said measuring the amount of traffic on the TPDD website was the main indicator of the success of the marketing campaigns run by the tourism body.

"Most of our marketing drives through our website. When we do a campaign we then look at the immediate results of that campaign." This is done by reviewing the visitation on to the site.

Mr Ryan said there was a major hurdle which was yet to be overcome in terms of research.

"The issue that we've got in this whole region, and it's a fight I've been having for six years, longer, is that we don't have accurate statistics on visitation to the region."

Tourism Research Australia (TRA) provides their research findings in this area, but Mr Ryan said the sample size is currently insufficient.

"We've got a number of issues with it, Sample size is extremely low in fact as low as 29 people to give us data. It's not acceptable."

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However, Mr Ryan said these figures could be used to "show a trend" and TPDD are "lobbying very hard to try and get that (the poor sample size) changed."

The trends show that international visitor nights were up marginally from the previous year, however domestic visitor numbers decreased.

According to Mr Ryan, there has been a significant change in the way people book their holiday to the region.
 
"The retail travel agents, and the online travel agents have maintained about that 50%, they were higher at about 60%.

"But what we have noticed is the huge amount of 'direct to product' have jumped up and a huge amount of 'walk-ins.'

"That's the amazing thing. We've got all these people getting last minute flights, they book their $99 flight and they get here without any accommodation."

Mr Ryan echoed TPDD chairman Gordon Wellham's calls for the members, and prospective members, to voice their concerns, provide feedback, and seek information from the TPDD office. 

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