Strong growth in FNQ tourism

BEAUTIFUL Far North Queensland is home to some of Australia’s best natural drawcards for international visitors.

New statistics from Tourism Research Australia set to be released today show 805,000 international visitors toured the Great Barrier Reef by boat or air in the year to March, while 270,000 visited the Daintree Rainforest.

The new figures come as Cairns basks in a new generation of tourism development, including Crystalbrook Collection’s three inner-city hotel developments worth a combined $370 million and plans for a Global Tourism Hub to be built in the CBD.

The state’s overall performance was a headline feature of the latest statistics, which reveal total international visitor numbers to Queensland increased by 6 per cent to 2.7 million.

Their spending also increased 6 per cent to $5.5 billion.

Data from other states will also be released today, with Queensland chasing NSW and Victoria for the title of Australia’s tourism capital.

Federal Tourism Minister Steven Ciobo said while “the Gold Coast, Great Barrier Reef and Daintree Rainforest are well-known Queensland tourism attractions”, the state’s capital had also broken from the shackles of its one-time reputation as a place international visitors arrived at and fled as soon as possible.

Brisbane was the “silent achiever”, with a record 1.3 million international visitors in the year to March driving strong results for south-east Queensland, he said.

Queensland’s Acting Tourism Minister Shannon Fentiman said China’s continued growth as our top tourism market was pleasing, with a 9 per cent increase taking the number of visitors to 517,000.

“We also saw good growth out of India and Hong Kong,” she said.

India’s increase in particular (41 per cent) will be a source of encouragement

“While the results are encouraging, we know there is always more work to be done and that is why we will continue to identify and attract new airlines and new air routes into Queensland, continue to build our events calendar and market Queensland as the perfect next holiday destination.”