Gold Coast hotels nearly full as tourism booms ahead of Easter long weekend.

The city’s tourism hubs are thriving with a busy events calendar leading to booming visitor numbers ahead of Easter.

THE city’s tourism hubs are thriving with a busy events calendar leading to booming visitor numbers ahead of Easter.

The traditionally quiet time of year for the Gold Coast has been given a shake-up thanks to the plethora of national events held on the Coast during the last month.

This weekend saw around 30,000 pop culture fans arrive in Broadbeach for Supanova, with thousands more expected to turn out for tomorrow’s annual cosplay parade.

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Kelly Mitchell as Xena Warrior Princess dressed up for Supernova last year.

The Australian Surf Lifesaving Championships, held across Burleigh Heads and Broadbeach last week attracted 6000 competitors and 90,000 spectators, injecting around $20 million dollars into the local economy.

Broadbeach Alliance CEO Jan McCormick said occupancy in local hotels was “terrific” for this time of year.

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“We’ve got 78 per cent occupancy across the precinct this weekend and we had 87 per cent for the Aussies,” she said.

Sword Swallower Heather Holliday at The Star Gold Coast, Broadbeach. Heather Holliday will be performing at Bleach* Festival 2019. Picture: Jerad Williams

“There’s a lot of people around and even though it’s wet the restaurants are doing quite well.”

This month the Coast’s biggest surfing event of the year the Quicksilver and Boost Mobile Pro attracted a further 50,000 people to the Coast, while the Gold Coast Film Festival boasts crowds of around 17,000 each year.

The start of interstate school holidays this weekend is expected to see another major boost to visitors to the Coast, along with start of Bleach* Festival 2019 on Wednesday.

Tourism Minister Kate Jones said there was a deliberate focus on events-based attractions on the Coast.

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Pictured on Surfers Paradise Beach front Winner of best film by Gold Coast resident Ms Bianca Nall. Pic Mike Batterham

“We’ve got a clear strategy to use major events to attract more tourists and support local tourism jobs — this is really paying off for the Gold Coast,” she said.

“Bleach is starting next week — we know more than 470,000 people have come to this event since it started in 2012.

“Then we’ve got SportAccord which will bring 1500 delegates to the Glitter Strip and pump more than $6 million into the economy.”

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Surfers Paradise Alliance CEO Mike Winlaw. Photo: Steve Holland

The city is also preparing for a bumper Easter with hotels across Broadbeach and Surfers Paradise reporting around 94 per cent occupancy for the Easter long weekend.

Surfers Paradise Alliance Mike Winlaw said the Coast’s tourism was looking much stronger compared to a year ago during Commonwealth Games.

“We are expecting a much better Easter than last year, because Easter was just prior to the Commonwealth Games and people left town or didn’t holiday on the Gold Coast because they were all concerned about what it was going to be like and that impacted the local traders quite significantly,” he said.

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“Last year if you looked at the stats the occupancy was quite good but it was primarily filled with SES, security, and emergency services people ahead of the Games and because they’re here working we never got the flow-on effect to other traders.

“This year we’ve got the holiday-makers back and the flow on effect to attractions, restaurants and cafes and retail is quite significant.”

The Coast’s strong events line up is also set to continue with next month delivering Surfers Paradise LIVE, the Gold Coast Music Awards, Blues on Broadbeach and SeaFire.