Tourism to focus on food
TOOWOOMBA and the Darling Downs’ top tourism body will focus on promoting food, wine and culture events in 2020 to boost the region’s allyear appeal to visitors.
Southern Queensland Country Tourism CEO Peter Homan said the organisation wanted to prop up smaller existing festivals and promote the area’s produce rather than introduce new events to the calendar.
The comments come after The Chronicle last week highlighted an incredible array of events happening across the Toowoomba region that were not the Carnival of Flowers, including the Women of Strength luncheon, the CurveBall and Lost Trades Fair.
Mr Homan said while it was crucial for southern Queensland to not lean heavily on the Carnival of Flowers, the region could benefit from being promoted as an all-year-round destination.
“We’ve got such a good food industry and an emerging wine sector, and I was just thinking about how diverse the events are in this region,” he said.
“From the carnival to cars, food and music, and those events create a great dispersal of money, so they’re a good way to promote the region.
“For ticketed events, you can promote that and on-sell the tickets – you can package them up with hotels, tour operators, itineraries.
“We need to make sure that a region can be an all-year reason to come here.”
Mr Homan, who celebrated six months in the job since taking over from Mary-Clare Power in July, said SQCT research revealed people visited the region for a variety of reasons.
“They’re looking for the natural assets, the walking trails, the mountain biking trails, along with visiting friends and relatives,” he said.
“There are some growing sectors – international education is one, and there are some positive signs in the international visitors market.
“New Zealand is still very strong and getting better for us. It’s still the key market, but there’s potential out of China.”
Mr Homan said the organisation was keen to work with the organisers of the Toowoomba International Multicultural Society, which holds an event in August every year, to further improve its appeal.