Townsville Enterprise introduces hop-on hop-off bus to showcase the city to cruise ship passengers

Townsville’s tourism advocates are finding new ways to help cruise ship visitors see the best the city has to offer, but some visitors have still been left feeling let down by our lacklustre CBD.

Townsville Enterprise director of visitor economy and marketing Lisa Woolfe and volunteer tour guide Karen Glazebrook were helping cruise ship visitors navigate the city on Monday with the new hop-on, hop-off shuttle bus.

A new initiative helping cruise ship passengers unlock the full extent of the city kicked off today with the arrival of the P&O Cruises Pacific Encounter, but some visitors have still been left feeling disappointed by our lacklustre CBD.

Following criticisms of Townsville that labelled the city centre ‘vacant’ and ‘vile’ by visitors and business owners, Townsville Enterprise has been working hard to create a positive experience for visitors and boost local business.

Townsville Enterprise director of visitor economy and marketing Lisa Woolfe said they have introduced a hop-on, hop-off shuttle bus to allow visitors to move around the city with ease.

“This is a really important initiative for us to reactivate the strand and the CBD with over 3000 passengers and crew in town, it’s important that we give them a fantastic experience,” she said.

Businesses around the city have also seized the opportunity to get more feet in the door with Townsville brewery conducting drink tastings and the new renegade handmade pop-up shop.

P&O Pacific Encounter docked in Townsville on Monday bringing with it its 3000 passengers and staff. Picture: Liam Kidston

“We’ve heard some of our city businesses have actually had their best trading days off the back of the cruise,” Ms Woolfe said.

“We do have a higher flood of traffic through our city but this week we’ve got four ships coming into Townsville so it’s a mega cruise week for us and our volunteers here.”

The bus conducted a loop of the city stopping at Gregory street outside the Seaview Hotel, then stokes street, the sealink magnetic island terminal and the Queensland Museum before heading back to The Strand.

TEL listed the top attractions as Magnetic Island, The Strand Waterpark, Jezzine Barracks, The Ville Resort-Casino, QLD Museum and Perc Tucker Gallery.

While businesses are reaping the benefits of the influx of visitors, passengers who hit the pavement were puzzled to find the streets so empty.

Carla Tootell, who was on the cruise with her two children, said despite being warned on the ship that a lot of shops had closed down in Townsville’s city heart, she was still surprised by the empty streets.

“It’s very vacant, we struggled to even get a bottle of water,” she said.

“It’s dead, there’s no locals, I just feel like it’s all us (passengers).”

Townsville’s CBD. Picture: Shae Beplate.

Travelling up from Sydney, Michelle Burke said Townsville’s location was “beautiful”, however would’ve preferred to visit the city on a day where activities were being held.

“Businesses just go out of business but now that they’ve fixed the wharf so that all the cruise ships can come in and businesses can start picking up in the (CBD),” Ms Burke said.

“I understand (the city) has big Sunday markets … so it’s unlucky for us that our cruise ship came in on a Monday.”

She said getting around was great though, taking advantage of the local buses.

“The public transport has been really easy. We went out to North Ward and it was easy to navigate around. A negative would be that we just came on the wrong day.”

A similar experience was felt by Blake Davis who was visiting with his family from southeast Queensland.

“The streets are pretty clean, but they are pretty empty,” he said.

“If you drove up through (Townsville) maybe it’s a bit better … but we couldn’t really think of much to do, we have everything in Brisbane.”

Karen Glazebrook was a volunteer tour guide on the Townsville Enterprise buses on Monday and said her experience with the passengers from the Pacific Endeavour was very positive.

“They absolutely love it, we’ve had great feedback already from the passengers including what a clean city we have, how beautiful The Strand is and the organisation was good,” she said.

Originally published as Townsville Enterprise introduces hop-on hop-off bus to showcase the city to cruise ship passengers