Holiday windfall for tourism industry

Queensland tourism operators are celebrating a bumper season, Tourism Minister Kate Jones announced today.

Ms Jones said Queensland was the destination of choice for Australians this school holidays.

“Everywhere you look, hotels are experiencing are putting up the ‘no vacancy’ signs as rooms sell out,” she said.

“The top four Australian destinations these school holidays and six of the top ten are in Queensland according to Wotif.

“Up and down the coast, tourism operators are celebrating a booming holiday season.

“Australians are coming to celebrate our beautiful weather, our beaches and our great regional and outback towns and cities.

“We all know that Queensland is the best place to take a holiday and it’s great to see so many visitors from interstate coming to visit.”

Ms Jones said Queensland was coming off a record-breaking year for interstate visitors.

“We saw more than 20 million overnight visitors to Queensland in the year to June 2016, with more than 8 million here on holiday,” she said.

“These school holidays are a good sign that our tourism economy will continue to grow.

“Mantra Hotels are telling us that 70 per cent of all their long weekend bookings nationwide are here in Queensland.

“And we are hearing that Christmas is going to be even better.”

Ms Jones said the Palaszczuk Government would continue to invest in tourism.

“Visitors are already injecting millions of dollars into regional economies across our state,” she said.

“We are committed to growing our tourism industry across Queensland and we are already seeing our investment in tourism marketing and events pay dividends.”

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