Queensland tourism losing its edge

QUEENSLAND’S tourism industry has fallen badly behind the rest of Australia, with its share of the lucrative international market at its lowest level.

While Queensland’s income from the industry continues to grow, it is shaded by NSW, Victoria and even Tasmania where spending has jumped 33 per cent on the back of a strong marketing push.

Tourism Minister Kate Jones said tourists were spoiled for choice, and the lingering effects of Cyclone Debbie continued to impact the Queensland market.

But the fall in Queensland’s market is not a one-off. It has been trending down for the past decade and official data shows that in the year to September the amount tourists spent in Queensland grew by just 2 per cent, compared with 6 per cent nationally.

Queensland has gone from “the obvious tourism destination’’ in 2006 when the state had almost half the market to about 33 per cent now.

Expenditure by tourists has also fallen, as has the number of nights of accommodation booked.