Sun starting to shine on Qld tourism

Crowds at Wintersun.

Craig Sadler

THE Gold Coast's tourism slump has bottomed out and the market is showing signs of recovery, Queensland Tourism (QT) boss Anthony Hayes says.

Mr Hayes says the time is right to ramp up international promotions, particularly in Asian markets.

"It's been a really tough 12 months for everybody and I'd say it's still looking pretty patchy for the 12 months ahead, but I think we've hit the bottom and we're starting to pick up slowly," he says.

"The domestic market has held reasonably firm, Victoria seems to be going pretty well, Sydney's been a bit of a challenge, but Gold Coast Tourism have been very clever focusing on the Brisbane market and getting a lot of the drive market coming down the road and that's worked really well for them.

"Our focus now is to probably put a little more effort back into the international side of things again, to make sure we're really looking after New Zealand, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, and to really leap onto the opportunity that is China."

Figures released this week show tourists from Melbourne are flocking to Queensland for their holidays.

Tourism Research Australia's National Visitor Survey for the year ended March 2010 showed 665,000 Melburnians holidayed in Queensland, a 25 per cent increase on the previous year.

On average they spent more than a week visiting the sunshine state with holiday nights increasing 26 per cent to 5.3 million in the year ended March 2010.

Mr Hayes was on the Gold Coast on Friday at a forum for tourism operators to discuss industry priorities for the region.

"There's some real promising signs and for the first time in ages I feel we can actually talk confidently about the 12 months ahead and that things will start to improve."

The QT boss piled praise on the Gold Coast Airport, saying nothing is more important than air access.

"We've got some great flights now out of Japan into the Gold Coast with Jetstar, and we've just announced direct flights for the first time from China into Brisbane starting later in the year which is a huge, huge step for us in the right direction.

"A lot of airlines had put off the purchase of new aircraft because of the global financial crisis but those new planes will now start to come on line and that will begin to grow again.

"I think the recent $100 million redevelopment of Gold Coast Airport is great, but the attitude of Gold Coast Airport is better.

"They are out there chasing deals, trying to get new airlines and trying to grow their market, and you can have the fanciest airport in the world but if you don't have that aggressive sales ethic it's no use, and they're just extraordinary."

Mr Hayes said there were also great opportunities to grow a number of Gold Coast events.

The annual Wintersun festival, which will be held in NSW from 2011, was held for the last time at Coolangatta a week ago.

The celebration of all things retro pumps around $25 million into the local economy and already plans are underway to replace it with another carnival.

"Incredible numbers are coming for the Gold Coast marathon which has now been split into a two-day event on July 3 and 4 because it's getting so big," Mr Hayes said.

"There are great opportunities to look at the conference market, the replacement for Wintersun and all those events even the Super Carnivale which will be the V8 Supercar rebirth of the old Indy event.

"The future looks really good, it's just so frustrating having to live through these economic downturns and wait for the cycle to come back again."