TEAMWORK TO FILL ‘ER UP

THE mirror image of challenge is opportunity.

And that’s what we are staring at 13 days from the Commonwealth Games Opening Ceremony.

Gold Coast accommodation bookings for the Games are softer than our tourism sector and indeed the whole city would have hoped.

As of yesterday, there remained about 10,000 rooms per night available during the 11 days of competition, or about 30 per cent of the total room stock.

There are a number of reasons for this, as has been canvassed in our pages this week.

One factor is pricing and it is arguable some hotels may have set the bar a little high.

Another is the widespread publicity about expected road congestion on Gold Coast roads, a message the State Government has pushed hard to convince visitors and locals to consider using alternative means of transport to cars.

Whatever the reasons, everyone involved needs to work together now to get as many of those beds filled as possible. There’s no time for recrimination. Now we need collaboration.

And there remains every chance the city can drive an 11th-hour surge in demand to deliver the economic dividend we all dreamed of when we won the Games seven years ago.

Almost on cue, the perfect gift to kickstart this campaign arrived seemingly out of nowhere in State Parliament yesterday.

Games Minister Kate Jones revealed up to 8000 new tickets for the marquee swimming events would go on sale from March 28.

Bingo! The perfect product to spark fresh interest in coming to the Games.

Now we have great tickets to match excellent, affordable accommodation - the perfect package deal. The serendipity is not lost on tourism bosses.

“Having extra capacity open up for one of the premier events of the Games gives us another reason to promote the Gold Coast to that drive market in particular. The timing is good,’’ said GC Tourism executive Dean Gould.

The GC needs to use every piece of promotional arsenal for the next fortnight.

We need our Games ambassadors, business leaders, Mayor Tom Tate, Ms Jones, Annastacia Palaszczuk and anybody else with sway to talk up the Games big time from here on in.

Encouragingly, demand for tickets and accommodation at previous Games – both the Olympic and Commonwealth variety – soared in the final days and weeks before the event. There’s no reason why the same can’t happen here – with a little luck and hard work.

And if the city needs any inspiration it should look no further than the entry point from the sky, the bursting Gold Coast Airport.

It has expansion planning well underway but to cope in the meantime with skyrocketing growth in passenger traffic, it has adapted, with short-term measures including extra terminal seating, self-check in and bag drop and more volunteers.

That’s the sort of lateral thinking that will get us there.