Tourism Tropical North Queensland: Cairns ratepayers’ $3m TTNQ spend
Cairns ratepayers funnelled almost $3m into Tourism Tropical North Queensland in 2020-21 – so what did they actually get for their investment?
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RATEPAYERS’ return on investment has been revealed after almost $3m was funnelled into Tourism Tropical North Queensland in 2020-21.
It was a heck of a year with overseas visitors ripped from the economy and interstate travel gutted by border closures – and yet domestic holiday-makers spent more than they did in 2019-20.
A new performance report to Cairns Regional Council showed total domestic tourism spending hit $2.3bn, up $200m in the space of a year despite the added pressures of a pandemic in full swing.
It outlined a long list of achievements including Cairns becoming the most Googled destination in Queensland, being named Wotif Aussie Town of the Year and earning $4.5m in publicity in the process, and TTNQ’s staggering social media presence with a 61.7m organic reach on Instagram.
While Cairns ratepayers paid $2.9m to keep TTNQ’s wheels turning, the organisation helped secure more than $40m in extra one-off marketing, event and operator support funding.
Its advocacy helped score a $10m federal government Recovery for Regional Tourism Program grant funding, $3m in Cairns Holiday Dollars and $15m for Queensland’s aviation recovery support fund and the federal government’s half-price fares program – although it is debatable whether such moves would have been forthcoming regardless.
Division 6 councillor Kristy Vallely gave the organisation a wrap for its work under pressure, with particular props for CEO Mark Olsen who took the job shortly before Covid hit in 2019.
“Imagine what Mark Olsen deals with every single day, the phone calls he’d be getting,” she said.
“Those operators are just on their knees and having to hold that up would be a really big job.”
Mayor Bob Manning flagged a key threat hovering on the political horizon that will take particular importance as the 2032 Olympics draw near and all eyes turn to South East Queensland.
Talk of a merger between the Department of Tourism and Tourism and Events Queensland has rattled the cage in the regions, with Cr Manning fearing it could result in total “bureaucratisation” with a paper-pusher at the helm.
“The emphasis may well go to marketing being done centrally out of Brisbane by the department, as opposed to Brisbane, Cairns, the Gold Coast, Mackay … It will be about marketing Queensland, not marketing the regions,” he warned.
Cr Manning said it would be a terrible outcome.
“It works best when the regions are at each other, trying to beat each other and it’s more private sector-driven,” he said.
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Originally published as Tourism Tropical North Queensland: Cairns ratepayers’ $3m TTNQ spend
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