24 November 2008

Southeast Queenslanders holiday at home in financial stress

A Sunday Mail article reports that the economic downtown is delivering a bonus to Queensland's tourism industry with strong holiday-at-home bookings for the crucial summer holiday period, with tourism groups from north Queensland, the Fraser Coast, Sunshine Coast, Brisbane and the Gold Coast all reporting solid interest from domestic travellers.

They attribute it to cheaper fuel, lower interest rates and a falling Aussie dollar.

QLD Tourism Minister Desley Boyle said an aggressive intrastate holiday-here campaign was showing results, with Tourism Queensland chief executive Anthony Hayes saying competitive deals would ensure further bookings in coming weeks.

Such accommodation specials are a rarity in the peak Christmas period. Noosa is already seeing an exceptionally high number of bookings. We only have a few gaps for Christmas now," said Juanita Bloomfield, from the Tourism Noosa Visitor Information Centre.

"It really is looking very positive and we are even seeing bookings for February and March, which is better than in previous years."

More than 17 million domestic visitors spent $19.6 billion in Queensland in the 12 months to June, despite a miserable Christmas period caused by bad weather.

But, thanks to "staycation" (stay-at-home vacation), industry bodies are more confident this year.

Dreamworld on the Gold Coast is predicting big things, with more than 300,000 people expected through its gates in the month from December 26. "I think the domestic visitation, particularly to the Gold Coast, will be quite high over the Christmas period," said Kendall Thompson from Australian Tour Desk, which works with more than 500 accommodation houses, hotels, theme parks and attractions.

"People are concerned about their budgets so we're going back to the traditional family holidays."

With Cirque du Soleil, the Brisbane International tennis tournament and exhibitions at GoMA and the State Library, Brisbane will also be a hotspot. A month ago, Brisbane Marketing launched the website www.brisbaneinsummer.com.au to promote the city as a tourism destination and already the site has received more than 19,000 visitors.

"We believe there will be a lot more people limiting their international travel and restricting themselves to travelling domestically to visit friends or relatives," Brisbane Marketing chief executive John Aitken said.

A Report by The Mole