International travel ‘Lag’ danger for local tourism
International Travel
When international borders re-open on the 21 February for Queensland, don’t expect to see thousands of tourists falling over one another to get to Port Douglas and the iconic attractions we have to offer.
The ‘L’ word is now being bandied about.
LAG is a dirty word for tourist operators up this way as they try to recover from a hammering Covid has given them over the last 2 years.
Why is this happening?
Well, there’s a couple of reasons.
For one, other countries tourist heavyweights have done exactly what we’ve done down under, encouraged their people to holiday in their own country.
So, Americans, Brits and just everyone else have been busy exploring and spending their money in their own backyard and not bothering with overseas travel, including Australia. And that’s awfully bad news for us.
As sad as it is, they’ve simply forgotten about us. Those million-dollar ad campaigns about coming to the land of Oz are now just a far-off memory. Until we get their attention again, there’s going to be that ‘lag’.
Another reason says the CEO of Tourism Port Douglas Daintree, Tara Bennett, is that although the international opening will allow access for some international markets, there are many countries that don’t permit return travel from Australia without quarantine, which will limit markets initially.
“There are exciting times ahead for tourism in the Douglas Shire however it’s going to take a united effort at all levels to realise the full potential of international travel” she says.
Ok a few visitors will break that pattern, but will it be enough to get us off the canvas here in the Far North?
More investment required
TTNQ’s Mark Olsen has told Newsport the Tropical North Queensland tourism industry will see a slow and expensive process of rebuilding key markets.
“Tourism Tropical North Queensland has been working with our trade and airline partners who now have the confidence to play their role in the return of the $3 million a day international tourism industry with Tropical North Queensland having the opportunity to lead Australia into a tourism recovery.
The highly motivated CEO says what’s needed now is tens of millions of dollars of investment.
“This will have to be done by governments and the industry to get us on the road to recovery and drive aviation partnerships while maintaining domestic market-share.
TTNQ Chair Ken Chapman and Mr Olsen spent time with the Prime Minister Scott Morrison while he was in Cairns recently and presented him with their program for the international recovery of the destination.
Mr Olsen was quick to tell the PM that “pre-pandemic, the tourism industry injected $1 billion a year in tax revenue into government and we are asking for support to get those industries back out on the road”.
Mr Olsen went on to say, “a reset of the eligibility for the Business Export Development Grant is needed to allow the businesses with the skills and experience needed, to reconnect with a whole new travel industry across the world"
"We also need aviation and marketing support to open the flood gates for a strong 2022 and even stronger 2023 so we step back into something like the world we saw in 2019”.
Tourism Port Douglas Daintree CEO Tara Bennett reports despite the concerns there’s been a significant pick up in bookings to Australia in the past week with Port Douglas and Daintree included in many itineraries.
“The broad range of nature-based experiences on offer makes this region very desirable to international travellers and our operators work hard to be visible in these markets” she said.
But is access to the Great Barrier Reef and the Daintree Rainforest enough to put 'Port Douglas' back on the international tourist map? What new investment in our tourism offerings or promotions do we need to lure the internationals back?
The $20 million dollar refurbishment of the high-end Silky Oaks Lodge by Baillie Lodges is elevating our destination to travellers with deep pockets, but apart from that there’s nothing much going on to create new attractions for regular folk, like resorts, or the elephant in the room, an all year round swimming lagoon in Port Douglas.
Things have stalled
The Coles development many moons ago was the last major development and another shopping centre, the IGA might be the next upgrade but apart from that, it’s slim pickings.
Tara Bennett says “We would welcome new development and investment into the region that fits with our destination brand and town planning scheme with the greatest gap being high end hotel accommodation which North American travellers in particular seek out”.
For the bigger picture, Tourism Australia kicked off their Icons of Australia campaign internationally earlier in the week, but don’t expect to see international travel numbers pick up until September and beyond.