Queensland the top tourism destination

Ask COVID-stuck Australians where they’d like to go on holiday and a clear favourite emerges.

Mooloolaba on the Sunshine Coast. Picture: Supplied

New figures show Queensland is the premier holiday destination choice for interstate travellers, as its struggling $2.5bn tourism sector pitches for business as the Palaszczuk government lifts border restrictions.

On Friday Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk opened the border to Australians who had not been in Victoria in the past 14 days, just in time for the July high season for domestic travel. Victorians were prevented from entering because of a second outbreak of COVID-19.

Analysis of tourism data by the Travel and Transport Forum (TTF) highlights that Queensland tourism providers could have foregone up to 400,000 additional domestic visitors, equating to $200m in revenue, if the borders had remained closed until September.

The figures follow a travel sentiment survey conducted by the TTF which found that the Sunshine Coast was the most popular travel destination for Australians in lockdown, with over a third of the 1523 respondents saying they most wanted to visit Queensland in the next 12 months.

It was the first-choice for 49 per cent of NSW residents and 45 per cent of Victorians.

The most sought-after regions in Queensland were the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast and Brisbane, followed by tropical north Queensland, for both intrastate and interstate visitors.

In Port Douglas, the Lazy Lizard Motor Inn is reliant on domestic interstate tourism. Despite being without a single guest or future bookings, manager Aidan Mulcahy says he’s content to wait.

“I think they need to make sure this is under control. I don’t want to take two steps forward and then one step back,” Mr Mulcahy said.

TTF chief executive Margy Osmond said if borders remained closed until Job Keeper expired in September, tourism businesses would not be able to shore up their financial positions.

“We would never argue with a health outcome being the number one, but we’re really hoping that September was the very worst case scenario, not a likely scenario,” Ms Osmond said.

“People really, really want to go to Queensland, particularly the Gold Coast. But now people will likely go to NSW, so there’s an upside there.”

With international borders closed, John O’Sullivan, chief executive of adventure tourism brand Experience Co, said he expected Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef to be beneficiaries as they became substitutes for tropical destinations like Fiji, Bali and Thailand.

The survey follows research by University of Queensland Associate Professor Gabby Walters in late April which found that local and interstate holiday-makers were likely to shun capital cities in favour of the coast and regional areas.

Of the 528 respondents, 85 per cent believed capital cities held the greatest risks to their safety, while only 17 per cent said they would visit a city on their next holiday.