Coronavirus Gold Coast: Tourism leaders pitch for funding warning of job losses

Shocking data reveals the true impact of coronavirus on the Gold Coast economy, with 60,000 jobs at risk. Now, the plan for how to save the city’s biggest industry has been revealed.

GOLD Coast tourism bosses want ratepayers to fork out an extra $4.1 million to market the city post-coronavirus, ahead of a fierce battle looming between states for visitors.

Destination Gold Coast will today make its pitch to the Gold Coast City Council for more than double its usual funding, armed with new data revealing the scale of devastation the pandemic has inflicted on the $6 billion tourism industry in four months.

COVID-19 STALLS COAST TOWER DEVELOPMENT

COVID-19 has see tourism income drop 74 per cent.

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Destination Gold Coast will ask for a continuation of its $15.5 million base funding, as well as a one-off COVID-19 funding package of $7.3 million. That would be an increase of $4.1 million from the $3.2 million in extra funding council dished out last year.

The core of Destination Gold Coast’s pitch is international tourism will not resume until 2021 so the highly lucrative domestic market will become hugely competitive.

Both Tourism Australia and Tourism and Events Queensland have flagged a big focus on this market in the coming year with big investment in promotion and marketing.

HOW CORONAVIRUS CHANGED COAST’S SKYLINE

Annaliese Battista. Picture: Mike Batterham

GOLD COAST TOURISM LEADERS BACK TRANS-TASMAN PLAN

Destination Gold Coast CEO Annaliese Battista said up to 10 million fewer tourists would visit the Gold Coast this year, costing the economy up to $4.3 billion, a whopping 74 per cent decline on 2019.

Ms Battista said figures showed more than 60,000 jobs which relied on the sector were at risk, around 20 per cent of the city’s entire workforce.

Ms Battista praised the council’s response so far to COVID-19 but said the extra funding would be critical to stabilising the city’s lifeblood industry: “The next six to 12 months will be the most critical period for tourism on the Gold Coast and a dollar spent wisely now will ensure our economy can bounce back more easily in the future.

More than 60,000 jobs and billions of dollars are at risk for the Gold Coast.

“Destination Gold Coast, together with council must provide the strongest support in our 45-year history to make sure we can lead the sector to recovery and in doing so lead the economy to recovery as soon as possible.

“We had a record-breaking year in 2019 and we have used the time (since COVID-19 crippled the industry) to examine how lucrative and productive our campaigns were to make sure we were investing public funds in the most responsible manner.”

Following today’s presentation, council will decide during its budget talks in coming weeks how much money will go towards tourism.

Mayor Tom Tate. Picture: Mike Batterham

Mayor Tom Tate said the theme of the 2020 council budget, which will be brought down next month would be “the road to recovery”.

“This doesn’t just mean transport infrastructure, we’re talking reviving the economy and rebuilding tourism, planning for major events which will be able to occur in 12 months’ time and putting money aside for planning,” he said.

“We have a four-year capital expenditure plan and I want to accelerate this as much as we can in the next two years while the market is particularly competitive. People want local jobs now and that is the key.”

In the 2020-21 financial year, Destination Gold Coast will launch four campaigns under a “come back to play” banner aimed initially at the drive market, then interstate, then NZ and eventually, the international audience.

Destination Gold Coast is asking council for more funding to fight COVID-19.

Its data suggests the biggest influx of visitors will come in the first half of 2021, though numbers will still be significantly lower than pre-2020 numbers.

It comes after a week of growing pressure on State Government to map out a recovery plan, with warnings the region would be in what Gold Coast LNP tourism spokesman David Crisafulli said would be a ‘knife fight” with other states for a slice of the smaller visitor market.

Tourism Minister Kate Jones said Queensland would bring a “Crocodile Dundee knife” to the fight and the state would be “out of the blocks” when restrictions lifted.

She said a Australians spent $56 billion on travel overseas last year and Queensland and the Gold Coast would be best placed to capture that.

Mr Crisafulli said yesterday: “Without extra dollars we have absolutely no hope in the world. It’s going to be a war for wallets and we need to be in a position to put forward why the Gold Coast should be top of mind for Australians.”