CITY TOURISM ACCOLADES

T O W N S V I L L E t o u r i s m operators have taken out four accolades at this year’s Queensland Tourism Awards celebrating the state’s $ 25 billion tourism industry.

The Grand Hotel and Apartments in Palmer St won a gold award in the category of Standard Accommodation, Mungalla Aboriginal Tours and the Townsville North Queensland 2017 Events Campaign won silver awards in their categories, while the Townsville Enterprise Welcome to Townsville Program collected a bronze award.

The awards were presented at Brisbane’s Convention and Exhibition Centre on Friday.

Queensland Tourism Industry Council chief executive Daniel Gschwind said tourism recorded 5.5 per cent growth and employed more than 225,000 people.

“International visitor numbers for Queensland have seen record growth in the 12 months to June 2017, growing 5.6 per cent,” Mr Gschwind said.

“Some 2.6 million international visitors generated $ 5.2 billion in overnight expenditure.”

Gold award winners will gain automatic entry into the Australian Tourism Awards to be held in Perth on February 23.