Cairns Tourism Industry Association

11/10/2021

|| CITYLIFE BUSINESS || Push For Cairns Stadium 🏉

With Kevin Byrne from Enterprise North

The glaring absence of a modern Cairns stadium to showcase rectangular sports to a national and international audience is a serious handicap to our future growth prospects and our city’s competitiveness. Work should have commenced a decade ago to establish an integrated sporting precinct based on Barlow Park. Instead bouts of uncooperative community infighting, a failure to recognise the community benefits for such facilities and a lack of planning and vacuous promises have left us now being labelled the worst prepared major regional centre north of the Sunshine Coast to host any of the growing demands of elite level rectangular sports. Think NRL, rugby and A League soccer for starters (men and women) as well as a venue for large outdoor events.

Our continuing failure here has left us woefully exposed to missing many opportunities that might come our way when we are talking about the 2032 Olympics. This was brought into sharp focus recently with the State of Origin blockbuster in Townsville which brought them much deserved good fortune, as well as priceless marketing exposure to a worldwide audience. Build it and they will come I hear you say! Currently we are not in the race.

Read More ONLINE 🤾
https://issuu.com/citylifepublishing/docs/clm_3qtr_2021_web

29/08/2021

11/08/2021

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Cairns is back open for Business, get out and have some fun!

Villa Romana Trattoria

15/05/2021

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Visiting north QLD? Rainforest and Reef is where it is at!Follow me on: Youtube: https://youtube.com/c/tabventures?sub_confirmation=1Facebook: https://www.fa...

19/04/2021

Loving Palm Cove

10/04/2021

What a wonderful team in a brad new establishment. Go visit and enjoy!

10/04/2021

Kevin talks about the QLD State Governments response to the recent Brisbane Covid cases and the statewide 14-day restrictions and mask mandates.

28/03/2021

Plenty of amazing bike paths in and around Cairns.....

20/03/2021

Lots been happening in recent weeks. Predictably the Treasurer has refused the exhortations of many to keep job keeper going indefinitely. We have been saying from the get go that we will not snap back when this is over and that there are structural issues that our industry here has to address. The sooner we reposition Cairns as the international gateway to Northern Australia the better. TEQ and successive State Governments and ably assisted by some confusing Federal aviation policy decisions almost destroyed our international gateway status. Pleasingly it looks like Qantas is taking us seriously again in these changed times but this article here is a sober reminder that international travel is likely to change for some time and we need to adjust and respond also: https://www.couriermail.com.au/lifestyle/qweekend/back-soon-or-banned-international-travel-wont-get-back-to-normal-til-2025/news-story/236d4cc0f4a044a35aa072f1c6c9efbdhttps://www.couriermail.com.au/lifestyle/qweekend/back-soon-or-banned-international-travel-wont-get-back-to-normal-til-2025/news-story/236d4cc0f4a044a35aa072f1c6c9efbd

With the COVID-19 vaccine rolling out across Australia, thoughts are turning to escape.

01/03/2021

CAIRNS POST OPED
Uncomfortable truths have emerged in the past few week and they are about how unprepared the tourism industry has been in planning to emerge from the wreckage caused by the incompetence of the State imposed regional lockdowns as opposed to a containment strategy. The prevailing belief is that job keeper should be retained for as long as international tourists stay away.

This expectation is flawed. There is increasing evidence that international travellers are not going to return in adequate numbers for at least 18 months and this was confirmed this week when Warren Buffet of Berkshire Hathaway, the world’s largest investment house, dumped all his holdings in aviation and hotel stock worldwide saying “ he thought consumer behaviour had changed for the long term”...hardly a vote of confidence in an early return to numbers of any consequence.

Our regional reliance on international visitation is well known accounting for 42% or thereabouts of the total visitors but what is not well known is that the raw numbers were well in decline over some years before February 2020 pointing to structural issues that needed remedy post the GFC of 2007 but ignored. We have been driven by the incompetent Team Queensland mantra of Tourism Queensland to our considerable detriment for too long. This is now our uncomfortable Armageddon moment when proactive industry and civic leadership is required to redefine our destination around the twin pillars of Australia’s northern international gateway to Australia and the Great Barrier Reef and Australia’s Tropical City. It’s time to ditch the dreamtime expectation that Aussie taxpayers will continue propping up zombie operations in the absence of some serious scrutiny.

Job keeper has served it’s limited well designed purpose and government interventions are now best focussed in supporting those businesses with a demonstrated track record of previous success and capacity to recommence operations when the circumstances represent. These will in fact form the cornerstone of the reconstructed tourism industry after the shakeout is complete and life returns to a degree of normalcy. Key businesses that cannot survive the current situation should be assisted to hibernate or redeploy their assets until numbers of scale return as is the case in the resources, hotel and logistic sectors across this country. In industry jargon it is referred to as “care and maintenance ” and is part of operational planning. This need is evident here with some marine operators who operate the larger and operationally expensive vessels and some transport, aviation and hotel operators. Those businesses who were marginal and relied on government handouts prior to 2020 need to be encouraged to examine their future prospects or cut loose. Our destination and the tourism industry will not “snap back” to the start any time soon whilst ever we foolishly think that irresponsible state governments will not close down regions overnight and our international borders are effectively closed for the next 12 months.

Our best hope is that Governments deliver incentives via policy fixes involving regional and remote taxation rates, insurance rebates, abolition of payroll taxation, a relaxation on fees and charges regimes, remove the back packer taxation impost and allow for accelerated depreciation allowances to encourage existing businesses to survive and thrive. Alan Kohler best summed it up last week by commenting, “but surely it’s better to pay the minimum wage ($758 per week) for people to do something useful than to keep paying $500 a week for them to turn up each day and play Solitaire on the computer at a dead company walking”.

08/02/2021

It has been and still remains a frustratingly excruciating exercise in futility to get enough people to understand that we have largely been conned by clever operatives. Witness the fear induced lock downs in Queensland and West Australia of millions of people because of a single infection of a quarantine worker of the "virulent" strain and no further transmission. State Premiers and the culprits who swing a wrecking ball through the economies affecting thousands of lives and then have the gall to expect our kids to pick up the pieces be for their decisions by plunging the national economy into more spiraling debt. The tourism industry is pleading for the certainty of open borders to operate profitably. They are not looking for handouts. Have a read of economic writer Judith Sloan here:https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/climate-of-fear-dooms-rational-decisionmaking/news-story/26af3e16c7369e41ef0529bd273ddb19

Last month I wrote a column about overblown environmental prophecies that pique the attention of the progressive media, particularly during quiet news periods.

08/01/2021

From the get go we have been the lone voice here advocating for the responsible management of the borders in response to heath matters. It has been a shambles. Today again the government has spooked the daylights out of people so that they will be reluctant to book and travel anywhere. We are not alone in our condemnation of this chaotic situation:
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/economics/tourism-leaders-urge-states-to-stop-squabbling-and-open-borders/news-story/3c060a610a19b6b463a2195ce00a3bf0

Tourism leaders have stepped up their attacks on state premiers, urging them to show courageous leadership, stop deliberately hijacking the livelihoods of many Australians, and reopen borders given the lack of locally acquired COVID-19 cases.

06/01/2021

Some very very happy southern guests spending a day with with one of our members on the GBR. We are very proud of the sate of the GBR and will continue to defend it's reputation as the best managed and most vibrant reef ecosystem in the world:

https://youtu.be/EiYFyMHM3Ho

First time visitors describe their day on the Reef with BigFishDownUnder.com

09/12/2020

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/its-reef-science-thats-rotten-not-the-great-barrier/news-story/1d95f63bc1a2651f5f7c4f9837750513

The International Union for Conservation of Nature has released its latest report on the state of the Great Barrier Reef. It has turned up the volume by one notch, claiming the threat to the reef has gone from significant concern to critical. It blames climate change, agricultural pollution, coastal...

28/11/2020

It’s a shame Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and Peter Beattie aren’t exactly seeing eye-to-eye right now.

23/11/2020

Here is another take on the recent rush to close our borders with SA. This whole haphazard COVID management incompetence has extracted a dreadful toll on our industry and operators:
https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/opinion/kylie-lang/eighteen-people-have-covid19-out-of-two-million-why-did-we-shut-our-border/news-story/2f57eb65e3ed5324a0e20cfef9bfa9ab

Nearly two million people live in South Australia. Twenty of them have COVID-19.

20/11/2020

The haste at which Queensland banned travel to/from SA was disgraceful. No positive cases is the past two days...and now this. The management of this is abysmal and embarrasing. Have a read of this...go figure:https://apple.news/AiLsm9DZ9TISy5b75D8wjuQ

South Australia was plunged into a hard lockdown based on a lie told to contact tracers, the state's Police Commissioner Grant Stevens has revealed.

30/10/2020

Well following on from my earlier post, the Premier has slammed the door shut on any reasonable chances of a Christmas led recovery for our ailing tourism industry up and down the coast. This is frankly disgraceful, unnecessary and just plain cruel. There are few voices here stepping up for our industry and the thousands whose livelihoods are in jeopardy. Where are our local leaders?: https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/queensland-government/queensland-premier-under-pressure-to-open-borders-as-top-employers-open-fire/news-story/d6dd13ee9731cc4b70c61abe2544aaed

One of Queensland’s top theme park bosses has slammed the state’s border blockade as “complete bullsh*t”.

29/10/2020

We are about economic growth and opportunity for our regions. We also opposed the extensive lockdowns with no evidence of community transmission. Sadly our regions have been neglected for too long and there has been promises and spin for sure but little substance.Regional needs are recognised in this editorial which has justified much of our consistent advocacy: https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/opinion/qld-election-editorial-state-needs-a-new-direction-with-lnp/news-story/e5f114368ec33ac7e4ab158147180a19:

This election should be an easy win for Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk.

27/10/2020

Peter Beattie today took aim at the Queensland Govt on border closures demanding they be lifted. We have been saying this from the outset. Here is what it is costing. Make no mistake but this region has copped a flogging in the past 8 months: https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/nsw-border-closure-costing-5-million-a-day/news-story/312e93c6e63facfa177476e724783d92

Hard border closures all but ending flights between Queensland and NSW ripped $1.28 billion out of the economy since March, or more than $5 million a day, a shock new report reveals.

22/10/2020

We have been very consistent regarding the devastating effect of ongoing State lock downs preventing travel. It is crippling our regional economies. Unless we set a timeline and agree travel protocols for domestic and international travel many will go under in 2021. Pandemic madness: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/aviation-shutdown-costing-319m-a-day/news-story/f70defd04f9b6d98ddb483263ea36893

The nations peak big business group has seized on new research showing Australias economy is losing 319m a day as a result of grounded flights to urge national cabinet to open state borders and announce a plan for unrestricted local travel by Christmas.

17/10/2020

This is a powerful message. Nothing much has changed in the past six months when Governments, Premiers and Chief Medicos commenced playing Russian roulette with much of our regional economies:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbHOL1xOG4s&feature=youtu.be

24/09/2020

Now the quicker all borders open the better. Queensland's border management has been atrocious. Plagued with inconsistencies, it has unduly punished the regions and flogged Cairns. 40% of our visitors were international so the sooner reality prevails and we agree on an international priority travel protocol the better. This article here describes the situation well:
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/coronavirus-if-tom-hanks-and-shane-warne-can-fly-why-cant-we/news-story/b9a6b4604069bf2f86c7d507119f7817

It is a very small piece of good news that the Morrison government has increased the number of incoming Australians allowed to enter this country from 4000 to 6000, starting on Friday. But minor tinkering cannot hide what is missing from the Prime Ministers handling of our international borders. It....

08/09/2020

Mark Olsen is quoted in this article and it provides some scale as to what is happening to tourism in Cairns and TNQ:
https://www.spectator.com.au/2020/09/victoria-isnt-the-only-place-enduring-pandemic-public-policy-madness-remember/

I had no intention of writing about Queensland again but, since my last column, there have been events for which a sequel beckoned; a recent poll which showed that 84 percent of Queenslanders backed…

22/08/2020

Hopefully we can get this story in circulation before the ABC and their acolytes distort a generally positive report from AIMS on the state of the GBR:
https://www.couriermail.com.au/technology/revealed-how-the-great-barrier-reef-is-really-doing/news-story/ae582bd1c4fcce86b1b5c383c09e6e36

Reports of the death of the Great Barrier Reef may have been exaggerated, with new research showing “encouraging” signs of coral growth in two-thirds of 86 monitored reefs.

05/08/2020

Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing, George Orwell wrote in Nineteen Eighty-Four.

05/08/2020

Kevin Byrne on the new QLD COVID restrictions ...

04/08/2020

TOURISM Tropical North Queensland has appointed marketing manager Lani Strathearn to spearhead the rollout of the Cairns and Great Barrier Reef brand.

TTNQ chief executive Mark Olsen said Ms Strathearn had a solid career in tourism marketing, having worked in agencies in Melbourne and Adelaide for the past four years with clients including luxury touring company APT.

“Lani’s expertise in developing marketing strategies for diverse tourism clients will be invaluable in leading the promotion of Cairns and Great Barrier Reef in a very challenging marketplace,” he said.

Her role developing South Australian Tourism Commission campaigns to promote its touring routes aligned well with the Drive North Queensland campaign, he said.

“Having worked as the business development manager for the Adelaide Convention Bureau , Lani values the role of members to take ownership of and assist in destination promotion ,” Mr Olsen said.

She also had managed a boutique hotel in Canada and run backpacking hostels, giving her hands-on industry experience .

Ms Strathearn has just completed a road trip from Melbourne to Cairns with her partner, Anthony, including two weeks’ quarantine in Tamworth .

“I have found my dream role in my dream destination making the three weeks on the road well worth it,” Ms Strathearn said.

“The low population, wideopen spaces and outdoor lifestyle of Cairns and Great Barrier Reef are the perfect antidote for domestic travellers wanting an escape from the stress of living through a pandemic.

“This will present new opportunities for the region especially in niche markets that will help grow visitation and our audience base.

“I am excited to be a part of the dedicated and passionate team at TTNQ and look forward to working with the tourism industry throughout the region,” she said.

Kevin Byrne says "Lets wish her well in the appointment"

02/08/2020

From the outset of this COVID issue I have pushed back on the State Government management of it in a one size fits all mentality. Additionally I have rejected the notion that the virus will be eliminated across the State and have advocated for a realistic suppression strategy and not an elimination strategy. It unnecessarily penalises small businesses and damages the very fabric of communities.Please share if you agree;
https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/future-seq/coronavirus-qld-why-largescale-lockdowns-arent-the-answer/news-story/220a7674650d925683079e3b89118422

One of Queensland’s most prominent business leaders has called for an Australia-wide plan to reopen state borders as soon as Victoria has a level of control over its COVID-19 outbreak.

01/08/2020

Kevin has a chat with Jacob Lowe from Dundee's Waterfront restaurant, on how the QLD border opening and closing is effecting business in Cairns. Dundees on the Waterfront

30/07/2020

Today I spoke to Kevin Byrne, the former mayor of Cairns and the executive manager of Enterprise North and the president Cairns Tourism Industry Association, about the premier's handling of the border restrictions.

Classic Hits 4CA

29/07/2020

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20/07/2020

Ever wondered where all the cruise ships go to hunker down during an industry shutdown and the cost?. Well here is the answer and you can draw your own conclusions as to how this segment of the industry will rebound. Can you see an Australasian market developing....NZ and selected Pacific Islands perhaps provided there are strict enforceable international protocols in place to avoid a repeat of the last fiasco:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-08/coronavirus-travel-what-happens-to-cruise-ships-during-covid-19

Hurricanes, humidity, expired permits—they’re all costly threats to empty ships.

16/07/2020

Kevin talks more about the Cairns economy and going forward over the next 12 months..

15/07/2020

Kevin Byrne talks about COVID 19's effect on the Cairns economy.

13/07/2020

So good to see this. New destination name of Cairns and the GBR. Obvious question is why was it ever allowed to be known as anything else. It has been like pulling teeth getting the correct branding back. Now for the hard work.

10/07/2020

Nothing more to say really. Local media and tourism talking everything up and the State pollies putting the fear of God into everyone with threats of another lockdown. The hand brakes should have been released weeks ago:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-27/coronavirus-why-is-queensland-so-obsessed-with-its-borders/12391528?utm_source=abc_news&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_content=mail&utm_campaign=abc_news

The debate over when to open up the Sunshine State to the rest of Australia hides a much deeper economic challenge as we transition to "a new normal", writes Peter McCutcheon.

09/07/2020

Disturbingly I noticed during the week Channel 7 quoting Wotif listing Cairns as the 5th most favoured visitor destination in QLD behind GC, Brisbane, Sunshine Coast and Whitsundays. Our tourism pioneers would be rolling in their graves and certainly, if alive, would be banging the door down at this ranking. I was at least pleased to see now an emphasis on the domestic marketing campaign back to the simple but EFFECTIVE message of "Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef". And about time. Today's heavy handed and over the top QLD GOVT approach to banning EVERYONE from Victoria will not help however and entirely unnecessary. "One size fits all" is destructive and is just pure politics