Tourism voucher giveaway on Gold Coast after freak tornado

Tourists can apply for $50 vouchers to spend on the Gold Coast as part of a bid to encourage visitors to return after the region’s storms.

A paddle-board lesson by Go Vertical at the Gold Coast in 2020. Linda Spiteri, who owns the stand-up paddleboarding business, says the past few weeks have been a ‘tumultuous ride’. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

Tourists can apply for $50 vouchers to spend on the Gold Coast as part of a Queensland government support package to encourage visitors to return to the storm-ravaged region.

About 50,000 vouchers will be available until late March under a “GC Summer FUNds’’ package and can be used at theme parks and day tours.

At least 10 homes were “completely destroyed” and another 556 damaged by a freak tornado and deadly storms that tore through the region over Christmas and the new year.

Queensland Premier Steven Miles said tourism operators had lost trade on some of their busiest days of the year.

“The Gold Coast is where people from the southeast come to have fun and this region and our tourism operators really got smashed by those storms,” he said.

“(It will) get cash into those businesses and give cash-strapped southeast Queensland families a chance to take their kids away for the day, give them last-minute school holiday activity.”

Linda Spiteri, who owns stand-up paddleboarding business Go Vertical said the past few weeks had been a “tumultuous ride”.

“It’s been a juggle because we’re taking cancellations, trying to postpone activities so that we can put them into the future,” she said.

Bill and Michelle Dunn lost their house during flooding at Degarra on the Bloomfield River in far north Queensland in the aftermath of Cyclone Jasper. Picture: Brian Cassey

A separate tourism package for far north Queensland was announced earlier this month, with discounted airfare and accommodation to encourage interstate visitors after Tropical Cyclone Jasper.

The town of Degarra in Cape York, is still without power or water more than a month after floodwaters tore through.

Opposition Leader David Crisafulli slammed the slow clean-up in the town, home to 45 residents who were “crying out for help”.

“Governments can’t make announcements and then jump on the next plane and disappear. Good governments follow things through,” Mr Crisafulli said.

“We’ve had a prime minister visit, we’ve had premier visit we’ve had a conga line of ministers visit, and they still sit there withering on the vine.”

Mr Miles said it was not possible to put emergency accommodation caravans in Degarra until power, water and sewerage were restored.

“The road in and out, we’ve got to be careful not to bring too much heavy equipment through because it could do further could do further damage,” the Queensland Premier said.

“So I just want to assure all Queenslanders that we are doing everything we can to get all of the services back into those places as quickly as we possibly can.

“But it needs to be done in an orderly way. There’s no use putting homes in before we have electricity and water and sewerage.”