CITY’S GREEN ZONE

Pitch for world heritage gateway to take root at Global Tourism Hub

A WORLD heritage centre to mirror international attractions in Japan and the UK could be incorporated into Cairns’ Global Tourism Hub. The Wet Tropics Management Authority (WTMA) is pitching its decade-old World Heritage Gateway proposal for the State Government’s planned Global Tourism Hub.

The multimillion-dollar gateway would act as a central meeting point where visitors and locals could engage and be inspired to experience the diverse environments and peoples of Tropical North Queensland.

It would help people plan and organise expeditions to the Great Barrier Reef and Wet Tropics rainforests, as well as indigenous experiences. The gateway proposal was first envisaged in 2010.

The project was then slated for the Cairns Aquarium, which opened in September 2017, but did not progress any further.

The authority’s executive director Scott Buchanan said the Global Tourism Hub would provide the perfect opportunity to revive the gateway project. A proposal had been completed and support would be sought from stakeholders.

“We saw the hub as one of those places that a gateway would fit nicely with, because the hub is more than just accommodation, and it’s more than just potentially a casino,” he said. “It is supposed to be a place that draws additional tourists in, and becomes a destination in itself.”

World heritage centres exist across the world, in major tourist destinations such as Japan, Norway, the British city of Bath and Bermuda.

“If you look at other world heritage centres around the world, they’re built to be architectural pleasures in their own right – places people come just to look at the building,” Mr Buchanan said.

TTNQ closed Cairns’ official visitor information centre on the Esplanade in June last year due to low visitation and the prevalence of tour desks across the city centre.

Mr Buchanan believed the gateway would help fill a gap, while providing a more modern visitor experience.

“It would be a bit more interactive than a visitor information centre,” he said.

“There would be digital displays and we would have guides there to tell stories.”

The State Government has received proposals from several proponents for the Global Tourism Hub.

It is reviewing these proposals and is expected to nominate a preferred proponent by late 2019 or early 2020.