TOURISM CHIEF’S EPIC BATTLE IN FIRST YEAR:
FLOWERS, chocolates and a few select tracks of Barry White at his steamy baritone best are the traditional hallmarks of any good one-year anniversary — but things are a little bit different in 2020.
There will be no dimmed lights in the Tourism Tropical North Queensland office on Wednesday as Mark Olsen crosses the 12-month threshold as the organisation’s CEO.
It has been a testing year but TTNQ staff have rarely been busier as they ferret out any small opportunities to drive tourism to the region.
“For anyone who has been in the tourism industry over the last few decades, 2020 was the marker,” Mr Olsen said.
“It was what we did all our strategic planning to — we’ve been talking about 2020 as the year of great achievement and it has been a really tough one.”
It began with a fight for flights but ended in a fight for survival that will persist after the calendar flips to January.
Fortunately, Mr Olsen said the COVID-19 crisis had been a galvanising influence on an industry that was getting increasingly fractious when he first arrived.
“It’s actually quite energising in a fight to know that you’ve got everyone in behind you and you know where you’re going,” he said.
“We know where we want to get back to. We know we want those jobs back, we want that visitor expenditure back.
“I think most people are pretty clear on how we’re going to get there and it will be strongly driven by domestic (travel).
“We were already talking a year ago about how important domestic was, but we didn’t know how important it was going to be.”
Mr Olsen welcomed Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s decision on Tuesday to extend the Queensland border zone to Byron, Ballina, Lismore, Richmond Valley and Glen Innes in NSW.
However, he said the main targets had to be securing direct flights from the ACT — and eventually Sydney once borders reopened.
“Usually at this time of year we’d have about 1000 a week from the ACT in the school holidays,” he said.
“We’d love direct flights out of the ACT to Cairns.
“We understand the airlines have to make choices on whether that’s practical and there’s enough volume. But it can mean a million dollars a week for our community.”
Mr Olsen said Far Northerners across every industry needed to stay focused on what was important — fighting for the Cairns University Hospital, transport and connectivity, destination marketing, and support for events and struggling businesses.
“It’s inspiring every day to see the community and the industry put their boots on every day, ready to go into the fight once more,” he said.
“This is a community and an economy that deserves a fight.”