BRING AUSSIES HOME: TOURISM’S SUPPORT FOR QUARANTINE HUB

CAIRNS could take in all of Queensland’s new quarantine arrivals after Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk agreed to accept 500 more overseas Australians per week.

The Premier announced she was looking at “mainly Cairns and Brisbane” to take in the increased quarantine intake in an effort to bring home more than 25,000 Australians stranded abroad.

“We’re looking at some hotels in Cairns, we know the Cairns economy has been doing it quite tough,” she said.

DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Cairns has put its hand up to become a quarantine hub after months of closure.

The hotel’s general manager Scott Wilson said he was aware of the plan but no deal had been struck.

Leichhardt MP Warren Entsch said Cairns now had the capacity to take in every single one of the state’s 500 extra quarantine arrivals per week.

“And if there’s an overflow, they can go to Port Douglas,” he said. “I guarantee they will enjoy our hospitality, our climate and the food we have to offer a lot more than they will enjoy anything down south.”

Cairns Chamber of Commerce board member Danny Betros said the benefit to Cairns would far outweigh minimal risk of COVID infection.

“These are not lepers, they are not cursed or dammed they are Australian citizens,” he said.

“There has been massive mistakes in Victoria but that won’t happen in Queensland.”

“We can do it and the economic benefit is huge.”

Tourism Tropical North Queensland CEO Mark Olsen said the plan had merit and could mean the difference between hotels being open or not.

“(The industry is) keen to do what it can to make sure Australians can get home for Christmas,” he said. “(But) first the (government) needs to make sure it has the resources to operate quarantine hotels.

“There is certainly an economic lift from it and we have heard some people in quarantine have come back because they liked what they saw.”