Tropical North Queensland receives $72,000 tourism grant
Posted by editor (editor) on Jan 14 2010
2010 >>

Tourism Tropical North Queensland will receive a special funding grant of $72,000 to implement two projects to help raise awareness of the value of tourism to the region, Tourism Minister Peter Lawlor announced today.

Mr Lawlor said the organisation would develop a Tourism Awareness Strategy with the aim of increasing locals’ appreciation for the importance of tourism to the region, as well as introduce a new market intelligence reporting system to look at how seasonal booking patterns affected the region.

“Tourism is a major driver for the economy in the Tropical North and helping locals understand its importance will hopefully lead to greater service levels and greater tourism employment opportunities in the region,” Mr Lawlor said.

“Likewise, implementing a Tourism Marketing Intelligence Report will help the regional tourism organisation better understand seasonal changes in booking patterns and how the region is commercially performing overall.

“The data that’s collected will help the local tourism industry with their business planning.”

Parliamentary Secretary for Tourism and Member for Barron River Steve Wettenhall said the grant, part of $1 million in Queensland Government funding allocated to the state’s 14 regional tourism organisations, would allow Tourism Tropical North Queensland to enhance the region’s tourism credentials and entice higher visitor numbers.

“Tropical North Queensland already has fantastic tourism product but both government and industry need to continue to raise the bar by looking for new opportunities, new markets and better ways of doing things,” Mr Wettenhall said.

“In the year to September 2009, 667,000 international and 1.58 million overnight domestic visitors spent time in Tropical North Queensland.

“Overnight visitors spent $2.6 billion in Tropical North Queensland, making tourism a key economic driver.

Mr Lawlor said the $1 million in grant funding was a State Government commitment to fund tourism development initiatives regional tourism organisations would otherwise be unable to undertake.

“Regional tourism organisations across the state will use their allocations for a range of projects from new product feasibility studies to industry education programs.”

The funding is part of the State Government’s new Tourism Action Plan to 2012.

“Competition for the tourist dollar is increasingly fierce and it’s important for destinations to constantly look at ways to improve their visitor experience – be it investigating new product opportunities, increasing customer service levels or providing business advice and support to operators,” Mr Lawlor said.

“I was pleased to see so many high-quality submissions and look forward to seeing these projects come to fruition.”

Last changed: Jan 14 2010 at 9:36 AM