Gold Coast tourism: Industry leaders reveal what will happen in 2021

The Gold Coast will face a winter of discontent in 2021 unless one critical thing happens, the nation’s leading tourism figures have revealed.

THE Gold Coast’s COVID-hit events calendar is banking on international travel resuming in mid-2021 to save it from a severe winter chill.

Tourism boffins believe the city can survive on domestic visitors during Christmas and Easter, despite uncertainty around the opening of the border and which events can be held.

Decisions are yet to be made on major events such as Magic Millions, the Gold Coast Marathon, GC600, Polo by the Sea or the annual superhero weekend.

“The Gold Coast is popular with domestic tourism and will be able to activate interstate travellers particularly over the summer,” Tourism Australia chairman Bob East said.

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Bob East (AAP Image/Claudia Baxter)

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“There will be some demand through the summer and Easter periods but then moving into winter next year we will be relaying on international or group travel to return and that’s very doubtful at this stage.

“Christmas will be quite good I think but I want to caveat that by saying we will not be able to make all our money for the year over that time — we need to have business year-round.”

Mr East said the conferences and events industry would particularly suffer and would be years away from returning to its previous position.

“The reality is there is no quick fix and I believe it will be years before we return to normal business,” he said.

“A lot of the bigger conferences we were in line for are normally booked two to three years in advance and right now we have nothing so it is going to take a while before we get a full complement of bookings again.”

Announcements are not expected to be made until the end of the year or early next year and will depend on the progress of a vaccine and the resumption of international travel, something not expected to occur until mid-2021.

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Daniel Gschwind. (News Corp/Attila Csaszar)

Queensland Tourism Industry Council chief executive Daniel Gschwind said the pandemic had “undermined the entire operating practices” of the sector and left its future uncertain

“COVID and its impacts are something we are going to be living with much longer than some of these restrictions,” he said.

“It is very difficult to plan things when you have so little visibility of the future and equally disturbing is the fact that we have consumers globally who will be unable or unwilling to travel because of either restrictions or a fear of infection.

“The upside is the infection rates have been much less severe in southeast Queensland than other countries so this will have a positive long-term impact for our destination.”

Tourism leaders say the city's future is bright, but it’s going to be tough on the journey there. Picture: LUKE MARSDEN PHOTO

Mr Gschwind said the long-term decline of overseas travel would mean Australians would focus on domestic trips and rediscover the Gold Coast as a “quintessential holiday destination”.

“This creates a particular opportunity to reignite the nostalgic feelings people have for the Gold Coast as well as develop a whole new clientele by promoting the attractions to visitors,” he said.

“Events and tourism are inextricably linked and drive a huge amount of travel but now planning for these is impossible and everything is going to be considered short-term.

“In March we woke up in a different world we are not going o rebuilt what was there before, we will have to build something new.”

Destination Gold Coast boss Paul Donovan. Picture: Tertius Pickard

Destination Gold Coast boss chairman Paul Donovan — who also serves as chairman of Events Management Queensland which runs the Gold Coast Marathon — said the future of the city’s biggest events was entirely at the mercy of state and federal government decisions.

“It totally depends on when they lift the restrictions on mass gatherings,” he said.

“Right now all the Gold Coast can look at is having travellers from Adelaide, Cairns and Townsville but long-term we are looking at getting through the other side of COVID and having a plan in place for the borders to open to New Zealand.

“Our research tells us there is plenty of demand for the Gold Coast and we are ready to go as soon as the borders are opened and then we can reap the benefits of all the effort which has been put in.”

Mr Donovan said he expected Australia’s international borders to open first to New Zealand and southeast Asia.