Tourism industry leaders met in Brisbane this week to work out how best to spend the $36 million promised by the Bligh government at the last election and decide what parts of the state were priorities. A three-year plan to alter the course of Queensland's ailing tourism industry and save jobs will be released within days after a high-level summit this week wrapped up its final details.
The Tourism and Transport Forum has estimated up to 10,000 direct jobs have been lost in Queensland in the tourism industry in the past 12 months.
Another report released by TTF in April found while hospitality jobs in capital cities were down 1.5%, the regions were hit much harder with the Gold Coast the most affected, suffering a 9.5% drop in hotel, motel and apartment jobs.
The advice from the summit will help form the Government's final plan that will detail how the $12 million allocated for each of the next three years will be spent on marketing and establishing new attractions.
The Gold Coast is set to figure prominently in the final plan with a recent report finding it had been hit hardest by jobs losses in the industry.
TTF spokesman Euan Robertson said the tourism industry over the past 12 months had been hit with a triple whammy from the global financial crisis, swine flu and now a rising Australian dollar. "There are a series of things we can put in place, partly that involves additional marketing to create demand, partly that involves creating new and interesting product that people want to go and visit."
Premier Anna Bligh had earlier told Parliament the jobs of 200,000 people needed to be secured. "We have done this because we want to hear from those operators on the ground about what is happening and what ideas they have to grow this industry," she said.
"We need to build a brand and an image that draws people to Queensland, to choose Queensland as their destination not just once but for many years to come."
Meanwhile a new parliamentary report says regional tourism needs extra support in the wake of the global financial crisis. The House of Representatives report released today has investigated the impact of the world economic downturn on regional Australia. A total of 170 submissions were received from welfare agencies, small business, the National Farmers Federation and councils including Griffith, Urana, Tamworth, Gunnedah and Moree Plains.
Most cited a big fall in income, losses on investments and difficult trading circumstances.
The committee chairwoman, Catherine King, says it is clear additional support is needed in some areas. "So we've made some recommendations around certainly some capacity building in local communities, better coordination of federal government services so that people at the local level can actually take advantage of programs as they come up," she said.
"We've also obviously called for the extension of some federal government programs in which there's funding, particularly in the tourism portfolio."
Ms King says the financial crisis has hurt regional communities reliant on income from overseas visitors. She says regions that support only a couple of industry sectors are also struggling to bounce back. "If they were not sufficiently diverse they had been knocked about quite a bit by the global financial crisis and we do know that nationally unemployment figures are continuing to rise," she said.
The new chairman of the Hotel, Motel and Accommodation Association says, ''Regional is not travelling so well and anyone with exposure to conferencing is not travelling well. The top end of the market is down 30% since June 2005 but that was a boom period,'' said Julian Clark, who took up his position earlier this month.
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