Huge numbers in NSW tourist towns a shocking reminder of what the Gold Coast has lost

Only big ideas will undo the damage done by the Palaszczuk government’s border block, writes Keith Woods.

THE Black Lives Matter protests were not the only gatherings of note across the nation over the weekend.

There was another event that saw thousands on the move, and it had far greater significance for the Gold Coast’s battered tourism industry.

Its effects were seen in enormous traffic jams snaking into Sydney on Monday evening, of a kind not witnessed since before the bushfires and coronavirus pandemic hit.

The weekend just gone was a long one in most of the nation, and people headed to tourist towns in huge numbers.

Demonstrators attend a Black Lives Matter protest at King George Square in Brisbane. Picture: AFP.

In Lake Conjola, a small town near Nowra on the NSW south coast, the manager of the local holiday park, Krystal Bourke, told SBS it was fully booked.

“The resurgence and uplift has been amazing,” she said.

It was a similar story at the Holiday Haven White Sands Caravan Park in nearby Huskisson, with manager John Meadows telling the ABC phones there had been ringing off the hook since the announcement that NSW restrictions would be lifted.

“We immediately had the phones ringing hot,” he said. “They still are.

“We went from no one to 300-odd people. It’s a bit of a shock to the system.”

Crowds on the beach at Ocean Grove, near Geelong, on the Queen's Birthday weekend, while beaches on the far sunnier Gold Coast remained cut off to southern tourists. Picture: Alan Barber.

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In the Gold Coast, however, tumbleweed blew through the car parks at our theme parks while restaurants and cafes continued to grapple with 20-patron limits.

Scenes of bumper to bumper traffic on roads back to Sydney on Monday were not repeated on the M1 from the Gold Coast.

Make no mistake, among the tens of thousands who drove south from Sydney for the NSW Queen’s Birthday weekend, there will have been many Gold Coast regulars more accustomed to heading north. They have now been introduced to an alternative holiday destination.

When Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, as she must, finally succumbs to reality and allows Queensland to reopen for business, the challenge to win these people back will be enormous.

Simple marketing campaigns aren’t going to cut it. With international visitors still barred, the competition for domestic tourism is about to become fierce, and our competitors have been given a huge head start.

Police at a border checkpoint between Coolangatta and Tweed Heads. Picture: Nigel Hallett.

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It will take something radical to jump-start Queensland’s tourism industry and re-establish the Gold Coast’s place as the nation’s favourite destination.

The Palaszczuk Government, given its damaging mistakes, should lead the charge. Here’s a suggestion for starters – half-price admission for every tourist attraction in the state, for anyone showing a NSW or Victoria driver’s licence, for the duration of their next school holidays in late September, with the State Government to pay the other half directly to tourist operators.

Council could row in by organising a one-off “welcome back” festival, with live music and free activities for families in council parks. Unlike the surprise event in early May, it might also be a great time to put on some fireworks shows.

The empty carpark of Warner Bros. Movie World in Oxenford. Picture: Jerad Williams.

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Others will no doubt have better ideas. But we need to start planning now, and thinking big.

The theme parks, the bars, the restaurants, the cafes, they need hope on the horizon.

There is an enormous amount of pent-up demand in the domestic tourism market. A University of Queensland business school study in late April found that more than 50 per cent of Aussies hoped to travel within the country when allowed to do so. The crowds in tourist towns on the NSW south coast at the weekend showed that study was on the money.

Here on the Gold Coast, it is probably too late to do anything about the winter school holidays, but we need to be able to put the border rows behind us and capitalise big time when the next holidays roll around in spring.

We need to make it so that it is not just crowds of dignified protesters that are seen in Queensland, but crowds of smiling tourists too.