Coast’s big tourism revival well on the way

STICK to your knitting. Sure, it’s a cliche, but when it comes to this city and tourism, it is a key phrase. The Gold Coast has become enamoured as it rightly should in recent years with broadening its economic base from just tourism and construction and property.

And great strides are being made in many other sectors with marine thriving, a drive to boost our health and knowledge precinct. This place is the start-up and small business capital.

But it is also the tourism capital and it is nothing to be ashamed of or relegated.

The fact that our once $6bn a year industry has recovered to the extent it now generates a touch more than half of that less than a year into the post-Covid pandemic recovery, is testament to the magnetism of the Gold Coast.

And the effort being put in by operators and the city tourism body.

The Coast is, to borrow a phrase from Gold Coast-based state Opposition Leader David Crisafulli, in a knife fight with destinations around the world and parts of the rest of Australia to regain tourism market share.

We have to put up a great offering to drag people back and then impress them enough while here that they return.

No doubt the encouraging surge in the spend per tourist figure – up $155 this past year on pre-Covid 2019 levels – is a great win. Sure, costs are up and so are prices.

But the tourism game and success of it has always been about yield as well as volume.

Things are heading in the right direction – and anecdotal chatter from operators and small businesses mirror the buoyant numbers.

The attention now must be on international connectivity and dragging up the foreign visitor numbers.