Overlanders Way to benefit from $75,000 tourism grant
Posted by editor (editor) on Aug 12 2010
2010 >>

North-west Queensland’s Overlander’s Way will benefit from a $75,000 grant to develop a new marketing and branding strategy for the touring route, Tourism Minister Peter Lawlor announced today.

Mr Lawlor said as part of the Queensland Tourism Network Grant Scheme, administered by Tourism Queensland, McKinlay Shire Council would lead the marketing project in collaboration with the Mount Isa Townsville Economic Zone, Outback Queensland Tourism Association, Overlanders Way Committee, Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation, and local government authorities in the Mount Isa, Cloncurry, McKinlay, Flinders, Richmond and Charters Towers regions.

Member for Mount Isa Betty Kiernan welcomed the funding announcement.

“The Overlander’s Way extends more than 1500km from Townsville to Tenant Creek in the Northern Territory and is one of Australia’s great historic touring routes,” Ms Kiernan said.

“The route follows the paths of our droving heroes, gold and coal miners and prehistoric dinosaurs from the coast at Townsville through the outback towns of Charters Towers, Hughenden, Richmond, Cloncurry, Julia Creek, Mount Isa and Camooweal and on the Queensland-Northern Territory border and Tennant Creek.

“This project involves collaboration by local councils and tourism groups to develop a new marketing and branding strategy that will reinvigorate the route and hopefully encourage more visitors to spend more time in the region.”

Minister Lawlor said the Queensland Tourism Network Grant Scheme application process was announced in February this year with funding available to a range of not-for-profit tourism groups including regional and local tourism organisations, local government tourism departments and divisions, and tourism associations that were members of the Queensland Tourism Industry Council.

The grants fell under two categories - funding for projects to enable tourism organisations to streamline their current operations – for example by merging with other tourism bodies; and for organisations to collaborate on new tourism marketing or product development initiatives that aren’t already part of their core operations.

Mr Lawlor said the Queensland Tourism Network Grant Scheme would allocate $3 million over the next three years as part of a commitment to help the state’s tourism organisations develop a stronger and more cohesive network.

“The aim of the grant scheme was to encourage tourism organisations to think outside their ‘business as usual’ squares,” he said.

“We wanted them to come to us with proposals that would help them build a stronger and more efficient tourism network in Queensland,” he said.

“The calibre of grant submissions was extremely high and I congratulate McKinlay Shire Council and its partners on the success of their application.”

The grants are a result of the 2008 State Government review of Queensland’s tourism network which resulted in a series of reforms which included encouraging tourism organisations to collaborate in order to create a more efficient and streamlined industry.

Further information: Minister’s office – 3224 2002 
Tourism Queensland – 3535 5010

Last changed: Aug 12 2010 at 10:23 AM