Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

asked the Minister for Tourism, in writing, on 10 May 2011:

What assistance or new initiatives is his department undertaking to increase tourism to North Queensland, in particular Townsville, in light of the high Australian dollar and the recent events that have decimated the tourism sector in the electorate of Herbert.

Martin Ferguson (Batman, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Resources and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows:

Since January 28, 2011 my department and Tourism Australia have intensified their work with the Queensland Government to deliver a $12 million Tourism Industry Support Package in response to the Queensland floods and Cyclone Yasi.

The Tourism Industry Support Package marketing campaign has included:

As part of the Queensland mega famil, 10 domestic media visited Townsville and Tropical North Queensland. The media experienced, first hand, local activities such as jet skiing at Palm Cove, walks along Williams Esplanade, day spa experiences, visits to Magnetic Island, snorkelling and diving on the Yongala shipwreck.

The Tourism Industry Recovery Forums program was jointly funded through my department and the Queensland Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation. The program offered workshops for tourism businesses in areas directly and indirectly affected to provide information on what assistance is available, as well as to deliver existing content on business resilience. The objective of the forums was to build tourism business resilience and capability in the recovery phase and beyond. A forum was held in Townsville on 13 April 2011 and 32 operators attended.

Under the “Servicing the China Market” CEO Workshops program, my department has engaged an experienced consultant to conduct a series of workshops from May through July across five Queensland regions where Chinese tourism is most concentrated. The objective is to develop the product currently being offered to the China market in these regions. The regions in which the workshops are being conducted are the Gold Coast, Tropical North Queensland, the Whitsundays, the Sunshine Coast and Brisbane.

My department will also provide support for up to 100 tourism industry representatives to attend the Australia-China Tourism Summit 2011 in Cairns from 7-9 June 2011. This will include a Queensland tourism industry networking function on 7 June 2011. A number of businesses and industry organisations from North Queensland have been invited to take advantage of this opportunity, including Townsville Enterprise.

The Trade Advisory Support program, funded by my department, will be delivered by Enterprise Connect, through a Memorandum of Understanding with the Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research who administer the Enterprise Connect program. Known as the Queensland Tourism Service, the Service will provide a Tourism Business Review to eligible tourism businesses which will be carried out on-site by skilled and experienced Business Advisers at no financial cost to the business. The Business Adviser will work with the business to understand the business’ strategy and operations; identify strengths and opportunities, including benchmarking against best practice; assess potential areas for growth and improvement; and help firms access world-class business tools, processes and technology. In addition to the Tourism Business Review, tourism businesses will be eligible for:

A further element of the Tourism Industry Support Package was providing support for tradeshows. Support was made available to assist in the attendance of 300 Queensland tourism businesses at the Australia Tourism Exchange in Sydney on 1 8 April 2011. Seven of these businesses were Townsville operators – Townsville Enterprise Limited, Tropical Horizons Tours, Vision Hotels and Resorts, Wildlife Island and Bush Safari, Reef HQ Great Barrier Reef Aquarium, Dreamtime Journey by Kookaburra Tours and Adrenalin Snorkel & Dive. The subsidy helped many operators attend, who would have been unable to otherwise attend.

In addition to my department’s activities, on 6 April 2011the Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Hon Kevin Rudd MP, welcomed a group of over 70 Heads of Mission and Consuls-General and their spouses to Queensland. The purpose of the visit was to demonstrate to the world that Queensland is well and truly back in business and to assist the diplomats in knowing first-hand, and being better able to share, the tremendous opportunities on offer there. The visit included a day in Cairns, finishing with dinner in Port Douglas.

It should be noted that the assistance being provided by my department and portfolio agency, Tourism Australia, is in addition to measures taken by the Commonwealth Government under the Natural Disaster Relief and Recovery Arrangements and the Commonwealth and Queensland Government funded Rural Resilience Fund. It is also over and above other support such as TQUAL Grants and funding for Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Projects. In the 2009 round of TQUAL grants, $100,000 was provided to Mount Flagstone Station Pty Ltd, 45 kms southwest of Townsville, to assist with the refurbishment of the historic homestead to provide quality farm-stay accommodation in the Townsville region. In the first round of Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Projects in 2008-09, over $16 million of funding was provided to the Townsville City Council for redevelopment of the Townsville CBD.