UNLOCK GATE TO FNQ
Great northern plea to create travel bubble
BUSINESS and tourism leaders are drawing a line in the sand in a bid to have unrestricted travel allowed within north Queensland.
Tourism Tropical North Queensland, Townsville Enterprise, Mackay Tourism, Tourism Whitsundays and the Outback Queensland Tourism Association have joined forces to compel the State Government to lift the impending 250km restriction on recreational travel from the Marlborough stretch north.
TTNQ CEO Mark Olsen said a broader travel bubble would help a haemorrhaging economy in an extended region that had gone without a COVID-19 case, in some areas, for up to eight weeks.
THE tourism industry has issued a desperate plea for a north Queensland bubble allowing unrestricted travel between the Cairns, Whitsundays, Mackay and Outback regions by June 12.
Tourism Tropical North Queensland, Townsville Enterprise, Mackay Tourism, Tourism Whitsundays and the Outback Queensland Tourism Association have joined forces to compel the State Government to lift the impending 250km restriction on recreational travel from the Marlborough stretch north.
TTNQ chief executive Mark Olsen said the north Queensland economy was haemorrhaging $91 million every week that domestic travel was prohibited and it urgently needed to capitalise on the June-July school holidays.
“In the Cairns region, we are losing $10 million every day that domestic travel is not allowed, with $4 million of that coming from Queenslanders travelling to our region,” he said.
“It has been more than four weeks since there was a case in north Queensland and in some places it has been eight weeks, while other areas have had no cases, which is well above the 28-day incubation period required by the chief health officer.”
James Cook University Professor of Medicine John McBride said experts were keen to work with the tourism industry to develop guidelines to ensure businesses would safely reopen.
Townsville Enterprise tourism and events director Lisa Woolfe said north Queensland lacked the population density that the Gold Coast and Brisbane could rely upon to support struggling businesses.
“It is unrealistic and not economically viable to place the same set of rules on north Queensland as the southeast, which is why we need an extension on the 250km zone,” she said.
“We’re calling for what has already been earmarked for the outback region in stage 2, where travel within the region for recreational purposes is allowed, (be) applied to the wider north Queensland region from Mackay north to Cairns and west to the Northern Territory border.”
Relaxed rules would not include lockdown arrangements for indigenous communities.