I’ll fix GC yield problem
New tourism CEO’s plan to up spend, bed nights Huge loss for amber gamblers
DESTINATION Gold Coast’s new CEO is already plotting to turn around lagging growth in visitor spend and bed nights.
City of Perth economic development and activation director Annaliese Battista — replacing departing Destination Gold Coast CEO Martin Winter in August — has a clear view on how to boost length of stay and spend.
Visitor numbers are increasing into the Gold Coast but spend and bed nights have not been keeping pace the past few years with growth in other parts of Australia and have even gone backwards at times.
For the year to September last year, foreign tourists rose 4 per cent but their spend dropped by that amount and bed nights slumped 9 per cent.
In her first major interview, the Bulletin asked Ms Battista about her approach: “The Gold Coast is no orphan in that respect, that trend has been seen elsewhere. (But) the key to addressing that is actually quite simple — it’s about making sure you are targeting the right markets and leveraging them properly. Quite often that means investing more in existing markets but also discontinuing or decreasing investment in markets that aren’t delivering as good a return on investment.
“I’ll give you a really good example. Certainly (in Perth) — and this will apply to the Gold Coast as well and I can’t wait to get stuck into this — a visitor here for a convention or business event spends an average of $900 a day whereas somebody here to visit family would spend significantly less. As a result we invest more heavily in that business event attractions market because we know it delivers very good return on investment.
“It’s all about targeting the right markets,” she said.
Ms Battitsa, who beat 200plus applicants, has been at City of Perth just over three years, starting as communications and marketing manager.
In March, she was appointed City of Perth acting CEO after abrupt departures of two CEOs in 10 days.
Asked about her strengths, she said stakeholder engagement plus “building and empowering a very strong team”.
“If you invest in your staff, you get dividends way above and beyond the investment.”
She has pencilled in August 6 to start with her 50-member Gold Coast team. Ms Battista and her husband are already looking at property, she said.
FIRST INTERVIEW P24-25
QUEENSLAND motorists were stung almost $600,000 for running amber traffic lights last year, thanks to a little-known law that makes it illegal to pass through an orange light.
Running an amber light carries the same penalty as running a red light, with both costing the driver $378 and three demerit points. Since 2015, more than 5300 drivers statewide have been caught entering the intersection too late.
Drivers in the Gold Coast/ Logan area were among the worst offenders in 2017, with 311 penalised for amber light offences.
This year, in January alone, 128 infringement notices, worth almost $50,000, were handed out across Queensland.
RACQ spokeswoman Renee Smith said the law was there to protect drivers.
“The yellow light rule is there to indicate the light will soon turn red, so drivers can slow down and prepare to stop,” Ms Smith said.
“It’s not a signal to speed up to make it through the intersection. This kind of behaviour is reckless.”