Brisbanites stay away

Get Set campaign hurts Brisbane ‘drive market’

A CAMPAIGN to deter motorists from using the roads during the Commonwealth Games has been blamed for a plunge in Brisbane drivers visiting the Glitter Strip.

Figures from the National Visitor Survey released yesterday show the number of tourists coming to the Gold Coast from Brisbane fell 14.2 per cent in the 12 months to March 31.

Destination Gold Coast CEO Martin Winter said a large part of the fall in numbers was due to short-stay Brisbane visitors — particularly drivers — deciding not to visit in the lead-up to the Games in April.

The Get Set for the Games campaign, which launched in January, had urged people to consider alternative travel options during the Games in a bid to avoid congestion on the road network.

“There has been so much publicity about the M1 in the first few months of this year that it is likely to have been a deterrent to the short-stay market from Brisbane.

“The recently announced upgrades to the M1 can’t come soon enough.”

Gold Coast City Council has said it would review the impact of the Games on business, including the affect of the Get Set program, with the report due in August.

However, GOLDOC and council later backtracked, saying the report would not cover how the Games impacted business.

Mr Winter said the fact that visitors delayed holidays to the Coast in the lead-up to the Games had been flagged prior to the event.

“We have seen other megaevents around the world experiencing this immediately before and after they are staged, so we are not immune to that phenomenon,” he said.

While Brisbanites stayed away from the Glitter Strip, 584,000 tourists visited from Sydney, and 376,000 from Melbourne — up 26 and 24 per cent respectively.

Mr Winter said this could be down to workers coming to the area for short-term projects “associated with the final preparations for the Games in the early months of this year.”

This saw the numbers of interstate overnight visitors increase by 2.5 per cent overall and day trippers jump by 2.6 per cent.

Overall, 3.4 million domestic overnight visitors stayed on the Gold Coast in the past year — a drop of 2.1 per cent.

Visitors spent $2.9 billion in the Gold Coast last year — down by 0.3 per cent.

More than 6.8 million day trippers spent 8.4 per cent less than last year.

Last year, Queensland saw 21.8 million tourists visit.