Awards success shows Surfers Paradise on the up again as a must-visit destination
SURFERS Paradise has got plenty of reasons to celebrate this week, with the Gold Coast’s most famous suburb claiming a swag of prestigious awards for its events.
Entertainment
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SURFERS Paradise has edged out events including Magic Millions and the Broadbeach Country Music Festival to claim silver and bronze at the Queensland Tourism Awards.
Surfers Paradise Alliance CEO Mike Winlaw said the Surfers Paradise Sand Safari (Arts Festival 2017) silver award and Surfers Paradise LIVE 2017 (Major Festivals and Events) bronze award recognised SPA’s continuing efforts to expand the range of free, large-scale annual events on offer in Surfers Paradise.
He said attendance figures in Surfers were up more than 351 per cent in the six years since 2010-2011, when 411,000 people visited Surfers Paradise events, with the precinct’s free entertainment offerings projected to attract an extra 1.85 million visitors next year.
August is now the only month Surfers does not have a major event on its calendar.
Mr Winlaw said SPA spent $450,000 staging this year’s Sand Safari Festival in February and $500,00 on Surfers Live in May.
“What our traders have indicated is that the Sand Safari influx has meant the month of February is no longer the worst trading month of the year,” he said.
He said SPA would also stick with its ‘winning formula’ for Surfers LIVE in 2018.
“We’ll continue working with the Gold Coast Music Awards to ramp that up on the first night of LIVE and we’ll also be ramping the headline act up next year with a major headliner,” he said.
Mr Winlaw said the Queensland Tourism Awards accolades showed SPA was successfully capitalising on the precinct’s soaring tourism status and its 50 per cent share of the city’s tourist accommodation, with local business and traders the big winners.
He said the fact the Surfers events placed behind Toowoomba Carnival of Flowers, which won the major events category, was a coup for SPA and Surfers Paradise as a family-friendly, events destination.
“If you look at our events portfolio, we’re still pretty young compared to an event like Toowoomba’s Carnival of Flowers, which has been running 49 years,” he said.
“Most events that win have been out there a long time. We were hoping for a bit of a place but to pull off second and third against Carnival of Flowers — we’re extremely happy.”
Mr Winlaw said the precinct’s strategic events strategy had delivered an economic injection of $96 million (gross output) for the local economy, up from just over $80 million the previous year.
The 33rd annual Queensland Tourism Awards were handed out at a gala ceremony for 900 guests at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre on Friday night.
Hosted by the Queensland Tourism Industry Council, the awards celebrate the $25 billion state tourism industry’s successful operators.
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