Let’s all push the tourism horizon
PERHAPS YOUR CAFE, GARAGE OR FARM WILL BE THE ONE THE BIG PLAYERS IN THE TOURISM INDUSTRY LOOK TO WHEN THEY CONSIDER WHERE TO GET THEIR SUPPLIES.
CAIRNS Regional Council has sent a strong message to our community in the delivery of its 2018-2019 Budget this week.
Mayor Bob Manning and his team of councillors allocated an extra $400,000 to destination marketing, bringing their spend to $3.4 million and gave an extra $1.1 million to support and develop major sporting and significant cultural events.
Their message is that tourism is everybody’s business in Cairns and we need to work together to market Tropical North Queensland to Australia and the world.
Tourism is the backbone of our regional economy with one in six Cairns jobs depending on the sector.
Mechanics work on the vehicles that transport tourists, bakers make the bread that visitors buy for lunch and hotels require the assistance of legal firms, recruiting agencies and laundries.
An increase in funding means Tourism Tropical North Queensland can work harder to support airline attraction to Cairns and look for new market opportunities to grow visitation and increase expenditure to $3.5 billion by 2020.
Our city is currently undergoing a renaissance with renewed investment in tourism infrastructure including the first of three new hotels to open later this year.
We need to continue to create demand for our destination to support this infrastructure and encourage further investment to bring more jobs to our region.
Unite and partner is our mantra at TTNQ. We want to work with our community to do our job better and create opportunities for economic development.
We want all businesses involved in tourism so they can better benefit from the visitor economy.
To achieve greater participation in the industry we have significantly changed the entry level of membership to TTNQ.
For the first time we are offering free entry level membership as a Friend of Tourism, which allows businesses that are indirectly involved with tourism to keep up to date with the industry by receiving our communications at no cost.
Small businesses directly involved with tourism or industry sectors wanting a website listing may prefer to become a Supporter of Tourism.
This includes access to TTNQ communications, invitations to TTNQ and industry events, access to the TTNQ image library, a listing on the consumer and corporate websites (where applicable), the opportunity to participate in familiarisations and editorial opportunities, social media sharing and digital collaboration opportunities.
This level-one membership is free to businesses that are members of the region’s local tourism organisations. The cost has been almost halved to $250 for those that are not members of an LTO.
TTNQ has three higher levels of membership with topline benefits for our Partners of Tourism who are the key players in the industry.
If we can build a critical mass for our membership it will give the Tropical North Queensland tourism industry greater strength as a lobby group and provide better networking opportunities within the industry.
Perhaps your cafe, garage or farm will be the one the big players in the tourism industry look to when they consider where to get their supplies.
Cairns Regional Council is to be congratulated on their investment in an industry that supports so many individuals and businesses in our community.
Let’s make sure we are all united in our support for Tropical North Queensland tourism.