Small tourism levy justified

IT’S time we made the hard decision and slapped a levy on visitors to the Far North to fund the marketing of our tourism products.

It won’t be a bed tax or a levy imposed on all tourism-related businesses.

It would be revenue collected by accommodation houses after their guests have been charged a small fee.

It has been suggested $1 each, which would reap about $2.9 million based on visitor numbers.

However, double that to $2, still small change, and that’s nearly $6 million.

The Gold Coast City Council charges a tourism levy on businesses.

The Gold Coast tourism 2017/18 marketing budget was $17 million, propped up mostly by a levy charged to businesses and collected by the Gold Coast City Council.

The Far North’s budget is less than half. Last financial year Tourism Tropical North’s budget was $8.2 million which consisted of $2 million from Cairns Regional Council, plus State Government grants, just under $1 million from Tourism and Events Queensland and $585,000 in business memberships.

Mayor Bob Manning admits it would have taken “gumption” to introduce such a tariff but he doesn’t want it here.

However, he is supports a visitor levy with an exact model yet to be worked out.

Visitors to the region do pay for a lot of experiences but we need to highlight that a lot of stuff is free.

It doesn’t cost anything to visit the Lagoon, our beaches, nor national parks, Botanic Gardens or waterfalls.

Overseas, people do have to pay to see such attractions. Nick Dalton Deputy editor