11 April 2008

Time to fight for tourism dollars

A report in www.goldcoast.com.au says that now is the time for Gold Coast Tourism to be putting in the hard yards to help fill the city's restaurants, accommodation houses and theme parks.

Wet weather and rising interest rates already have heralded what the rest of this year could be like, with theme parks experiencing a sharp downturn in business, eating houses short of customers and the Magic Millions carnival recording a fall in crowd numbers.

The other minus for the Gold Coast is the strength of the Australian dollar and the inclination of many people to holiday in cheap Asian and South Pacific resorts.

But if the bleak first quarter of this year shows anything, it is that we cannot survive without day-trippers and longer-term visitors from Brisbane.

Weather permitting, more than six million day tripper visits a year are made to the Gold Coast, mostly from Brisbane, and Brisbanites who choose to stay overnight normally rack up about a million stays a year.

And the number of people from other parts of Queensland who drive to the Gold Coast for a holiday is more than 670,000. Many of them have gone missing this year because of unpleasant beach weather.

Thankfully, cheap airfares from southern city destinations have lured thousands of newcomers: the no-frills carriers are full and Gold Coast Airport is constantly crowded.

But the market the Gold Coast needs to reinforce is Brisbane, the source of more than $1 billion in day-tripper and short-stay tourism a year, and the entry point in southeast Queensland for hundreds of thousands of international tourists.

If national and international economies turn sour this year, as many financial experts are tipping, we will need Brisbane's casual visitors more than ever before.

So there's the immediate challenge for Gold Coast Tourism -- to remind Brisbane people that we're still the fun capital of Australia, that we're good for families, and that anyone can have a great day here for as much or as little as they choose to spend.

The Gold Coast still represents the best value for money on the eastern seaboard of Australia. Let's not allow families and sea changers to forget that.

A Report from The Mole and www.goldcoast.com.au