Bring back the boom

IF A visionary government wants to bring Cairns back to its boom tourism years of the 90s, then it need look no further than Singapore.

A country smaller than the Cairns region but with more than 12 million tourists, a country with no natural beauty but hundreds of hectares of rainforest, a country that has transformed from a warravaged nation under people with vision to be the fifth biggest tourist destination in the world.

Cairns has the chance to emulate the appeal of Singapore.

As much as we all love our “beautiful mangroves”, honestly, being confronted by a rock strewn airport road and mangroves is not a good first impression of a tropical paradise.

Why can’t we have a rainforest boulevard with hanging orchids much like our main showpiece, the road into the botanical gardens? But only 10 per cent of tourists get to see it.

We have a once-only chance to widen the road to 50m each side into the Esplanade by pumping the rich river silt from the dredging of the Cairns inlet at a fraction of the cost and with suction hoses that will cause far less sediment on the Reef, running under the creek bridge both sides can be made into one of the great airport gateways of the world.

This widening could include mangrove cycleways off this beautiful boulevard out to the mouth of the Barron River.

As a former owner of many tourists destinations and manager of one of 1200 patrons, I know tourists’ greatest wish is to experience nature at its finest and if we have to recreate Cairns like the tropical gardens that Singapore has done, then let’s do it, because if we don’t look at the world’s best then we are going to keep on going backwards.

Just be bold and show some leadership.

Kevin Jalandoni, Cairns