New figures reveal how Queensland tourism is big business
New figures out this week show Queensland’s tourism industry has reached staggering new heights, leaving other states in the dust – and the best is yet to come.
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DON’T be fooled by the laughing, smiling faces on those picture-perfect travel ads — Queensland’s tourism industry is serious business.
New figures released this week revealed that tourists injected a staggering $23.5 billion in to the state’s economy in the year to September.
The record spending spree, up 12.2 per cent on the previous year, catapults tourism in to the same sphere as the resources sector as one of Queensland’s most lucrative industries.
But even more exciting for Queensland’s tourism boffins was the news that the state was finally starting to claw back ground on traditional southern rivals NSW and Victoria for the title of Australia’s tourism crown.
With travel becoming more and more accessible to more and more people, spending and visitor number records are made to be broken on a regular basis, but it’s been years since Queensland was able to outpace the growth of the southern states boosted by economic powerhouses Sydney and Melbourne.
By virtue of their superior population bases, NSW and Victoria have a natural advantage on domestic tourism statistics, while Sydney also benefits from boasting Australia’s main gateway for international travellers.
Melbourne has also carved out a niche as the country’s main international student hub, with those numbers also counted in tourism statistics.
But in one of the truest measures of tourism, domestic holidays, Queensland is more than matching its southern rivals.
In a year where Queensland captured the world’s attention with the Battle of Brisbane boxing super fight, the Sunshine State once again punched above its weight.
According to figures from Tourism Research Australia, Queensland now has almost 28 per cent of the domestic holiday market, (up 1.3 per cent on the previous year) and 20 per cent of international visitors, again up over 1 per cent while NSW and Victoria made only minimal gains or went backwards.
The share of visitor spending also increased in comparison to NSW and Victoria.
Making it more impressive is the increasingly competitive space for Aussie tourism dollars with WA and Tasmania in particular making giant strides in tourism in recent years.
Queensland Tourism Minister Kate Jones says a deliberate effort to build the state’s events calendar, from about $350 million worth of economic stimulus four years ago to an estimated $800 million this year, has helped the state rise to the challenge.
“To borrow from the theme of the Jeff Horn fight, Queensland was being outpunched on events,” she says.
“We’ve worked really hard to build our events calendar and give people more reasons to want to come to Queensland.
“There was a sense from some people that once you had been to Queensland you had done Queensland, so we want to keep giving them new reasons to come back.”
So far it seems to be working.
The true test will come in six months when statistics will no longer be boosted by figures from the Commonwealth Games, the largest event held in Queensland this century.
However, Ms Jones is confident there will be no post-Games hangover, pointing to the fact this year’s events calendar is projected to be worth $20 million more than last year’s, even without the boost given from the Comm Games.
Tourism leaders also gush over an investment pipeline of new hotels, resorts and attractions worth an estimated $14 billion, headed by the twin southeast projects of Star Entertainment at Queen’s Wharf and the Gold Coast.
If there had been any criticism of the super-impressive Ms Jones, it was that the Queensland government’s ‘minister for everything’ was being wasted on such a junior portfolio.
That’s not how she sees it.
“Tourism is an economic powerhouse of our state,” she says.
“And it’s something that all Queenslanders feel a sense of ownership of.
“When tourism is firing it really sends a positive message and a sense of pride that we are lucky enough to live here.”
Queensland Tourism Industry Council CEO Daniel Gschwind believes the state has another natural advantage in the vastness and diversity of its landscapes.
“Our regional diversity really is an embarrassment of riches,” he says.
“If you want to escape to some of the most remote landscapes in the country you can do that, if you want an urban experience you can do that too.
“The beaches, the reef, the rainforests, we have a collection of experiences that no one else can offer.”
Tourism leaders have at times tried to play down the role of different regions of Queensland, preferring an all-of-state approach using the philosophy that it was better to focus on luring people to ‘Queensland’ rather than specific regions.
Regions should be working together to bring people to Queensland, rather than competing with each other for the same tourist dollars, or so the theory goes.
This week’s figures from TRA were largely encouraging for most of the regions, particular when it came to visitor spending.
Some of the more erratic peaks and troughs can be taken with a grain of salt due to the low starting base in regions that attract only a fraction of the 16 million tourists who visited the state’s southeast last year.
It’s part of the reason why Tourism and Events Queensland has started measuring statistics from smaller regions in three-year cycles to better showcase long-term trends.
Despite welcoming a healthy increase of 8 per cent in domestic visitor spending, Outback Queensland dropped in both domestic and international visitor numbers as well as international visitor spending.
It’s part of the reason why the Queensland government has signalled 2019 as ‘The Year of Outback Tourism’ in a bid to stimulate the small towns and communities home to some of the state’s quirkiest attractions.
The recent introduction of outback events such as the Big Red Bash on the iconic sand dune outside Birdsville have also helped arrest the slide.
Mr Gschwind says a vibrant tourism industry means a vibrant Queensland.
“Tourism provides some 138,000 direct jobs and 79,000 indirect jobs,” he says.
“That’s more than forestry, fishing and mining combined.
“It gives countless communities around Queensland a future when very few other industries can do that.
“It creates the opportunity for communities to be revitalised and thrive on showing off what they have to offer, a sense of pride, employment for young people, it has enormous potential.”
Dan Petrie from the Chamber of Commerce and Industry Queensland says the days of dismissing tourism as a lightweight industry were long gone.
“If you translated Queensland tourism’s value in to an export market, it would be in the top five exports in the country,” he says.
“That’s how valuable it is and it is starting to bear serious fruit.”
Last year Queensland coal contributed $35.3 billion to the state’s economy, growth of 11.4 per cent on the previous year.
Mr Petrie says tourism deserves to be mentioned in the same conversation and could be more dependable for the economy.
“It is experiencing double digit growth and revenues aren’t tied to volatile commodity prices.
“It’s far more reliable.”
Despite the feeling of optimism, no one is sitting on their hands yet.
TEQ chairman Brett Godfrey wants to see the state follow the lead of New Zealand and Tasmania by taking better advantage of our natural attractions such as national parks, where other destinations offer glamping and eco-resorts in a bid to make them more accessible to the general public.
So far, only minimal steps have been made in that space.
TEQ CEO Leanne Coddington says while this week’s results were positive, Queensland has to ensure its tourism offering remain competitive in the future.
“As we begin 2019, we know tourists have more opportunities to travel than ever before so to not only remain competitive but to thrive, we must continue to challenge ourselves and deliver experiences that go above and beyond,” she says.
“Our diverse landscapes offer travellers an opportunity to immerse themselves in our authentic experiences from living Queensland’s iconic beach culture, to diving the Great Barrier Reef, to exploring the world’s oldest living rainforest, to experiencing the only place in Australia where two indigenous cultures meet — those are things you can’t find anywhere else in the world.
“Queensland has huge potential to grow in the areas of nature-based and Indigenous tourism, both of which are key drivers of visitation, and we’ll continue to work with industry to develop these experiences.
“Attracting more flights into Queensland, especially from our key international source markets, will remain vital into the future and so will our events calendar, which this year is worth $800m and features new, innovative events like the NRL Magic Round, Outback Masters Golf and Curiocity.
“Our research also shows what a vital role food plays in attracting visitors to a destination and Queensland has some of the world’s best produce and seafood so there’ll be some exciting things happening in that space this year and beyond too.”
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