Ian Thomas knows he is a long-shot in the race to become Mayor of Cairns Regional Council at tomorrow's election, but that hasn't stopped him from voicing his concerns over what he believes is the "financial mismanagement" of the region.

Mr Thomas said the council is not adhering to the economic principles of a private business.

"The way this council has been run over the past four years, their financial mismanagement, and the waste, waste, waste, there has been no emphasis whatsoever which in a normal business operation, these places would be out of business.

"The whole council needs to be tipped on its head.

"I'm generalising here, but they seem to think nothing about any expenditure or efficiencies whatsoever, and whatever Val (Schier) or the CEO (Lyn Russell) want they seem to get.

"Subsequently everything else is just dropping away."

Mr Thomas said council staff need further training and the tools required to increase their effectiveness.

"It's a service organisation that's not giving us any service.

"If you want to build something or start a new business, all that happens when you go to the council is obstruction after obstruction after obstruction.

"The only people that I've dealt with at the council that are doing a fantastic job are the girls at the front counter. They could be employed anywhere, they're brilliant."

He said that there has been an upward spiral in middle and upper management expenses that have come at a great cost to rate payers.

"In 2009, the full time employee average salary was $60,300. Within two years that had grown to $70,300.

"Where that expense has blown out is with the tremendous salaries that some of these people are being paid.

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"The council and the Mayor have not been running the council in the best interests of the community, and they certainly haven't been considering, when they're making expenditure decisions, the benefit to the larger number of ratepayers."

On tourism, Mr Thomas, who was chairman of the inaugural Cairns Tourism Association, said there is active cronyism amongst the larger companies and region tourism body, Tourism Tropical North Queensland.

"The big operators in the old days were all individual owners, and to a certain extent they're still original owners or they have influence over the people that took them over.

"They get preferential treatment, they're always the first people who are subsidised on any of these forays for marketing the area, and they get preferential treatment in every aspect from TTNQ.

"If you're a normal operator just trying to struggle along and make ends meet, you not only lose money by contributing to these organisations, but you're being shuffled to the bottom of the pile.

"But they're afraid not to be part of it, and they're afraid to say anything in case they're persecuted."

He said the way the local government funded TTNQ should be reviewed and would be should he be elected Mayor tomorrow.

"What's happening with the TTNQ is they always want to go on these bloody junkets, stay in five-star hotels and take their buddies along with them.

"It's been happening since the early 80's and it's getting worse and worse because TTNQ has expanded so dramatically with the amount of people, and they're getting a worse result.

"If I was elected I'd look very carefully at the TTNQ organisation."

He touted setting up a small team within council who would market the region through online channels, a method he believes is more effective than traditional marketing methods.