Future Gold Coast: Mayor Tom Tate on the city’s tourism future

To keep people coming back to the Gold Coast and generate buzz about the city, we must keep innovating, writes Mayor Tom Tate.

IT’S an unwritten rule in the tourism and hospitality industry: you’ve got to keep innovating, creating and improving otherwise your business can wither on the vine.

For restaurants and cafes it means a complete internal decor revamp, menu updates or new service offerings. For theme parks it usually means new rides and attractions. Our city is no different.

To keep people coming back, to keep the buzz about our city, to stay attractive as a destination with domestic and international travel agents, the Gold Coast also needs to keep innovating, creating and improving our tourism product and services.

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Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate. Picture Tim Marsden

There are many great reasons why Gold Coast is a global tourism destination and it goes well beyond our brilliant climate, world-class beaches and scenic beauty.

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Our tourism portfolio today includes a stunning array of natural and built attractions that very few other places can compete with. Whether you love thrill rides, superb sporting contests, thoroughbred racing, live music, fabulous food and drink, cuddling a thousand-year-old tree or just getting sand between your toes, this city has it all.

But we must continually offer visitors new reasons to come here. The City’s offshore dive site proposal has won State approval and we are in the final tender processes. It will not only bring divers from all around our region but create a vibrant new marine life habitat to enhance our undersea environment.

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Artist impressions of Gold Coast Art Gallery at the Gold Coast Cultural Precinct. Supplied by Gold Coast City Council

Our portfolio of festivals and events is growing all the time and drawing larger crowds. Our new Home of the Arts (HOTA) art gallery will be the largest regional gallery in the nation when finished next year, complementing our HOTA outdoor stage and under construction green bridge, linking HOTA, Chevron Island and Surfers Paradise.

It won’t surprise anyone that attracting thousands of additional tourists every year with a cruise ship terminal will be a terrific boost to our local economy and Gold Coast jobs.

And if we can move people around our city easily we can get them to visit more attractions during their stays. That makes taking Light Rail to Coolangatta and the airport a no-brainer. It is also the driving force behind my new ferry service that will commence runs by the end of the year.

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COAST MAJOR PROJECTS: CRUISE SHIP, CASINO OR CABLEWAY?

This is why I am also really keen to encourage a cableway experience to take people up to the hinterland escarpment above the canopy. The beauty of that rainforest environment makes your heart beat faster and it is something everyone, regardless of ability or fitness, deserves to experience.

But beyond anything else, what we need to give a super boost to our existing attractions is for operators to cross-promote each other. Put our have-a-go spirit into practice because everyone wins if we boost awareness of each other.

Tom Tate is Mayor of the Gold Coast.