Sunshine State COVID Report: How is your region faring?

Sunshine State COVID Report:

How is your region faring?

By Mandy Clarke, Industry Reporter

We asked regional industry leaders and operators across the state how they have been impacted by plummeting visitor numbers and whether they are seeing any signs of early recovery...

Bushfi res and coronavirus crushed domestic tourism this year, according to the latest monthly snapshot from Tourism Research Australia, Austrade.

The statistics confi rm what struggling resort managers, accom providers and tourism operators throughout the South East Coast have been telling Resort News for months.

The research shows that domestic travel began to wane as early as March when COVID-19 struck and overnight spend fell by 41 percent or $2.6 billion for the whole month. April saw domestic overnight spend plummet to $666 million, this was 91 percent or $7 billion less than in April 2019. The easing of lockdown measures saw May improve slightly but overnight spend fell 82 percent to $1.1 billion, creating a loss of $4.8 billion compared with May 2019.

The report shows domestic overnight tourism dropped around $13.7 billion (41 percent) between January and the end of May, due to the one-two punch of the summer bushfi res then COVID-19.

Easter and school holidays are usually a busy time, but the travel restrictions and uncertainty meant Australians took just 1.6 million overnight trips in April -86 percent or 9.6 million fewer than in April 2019.

Without a vaccine, there is no end in sight to the disruption with clusters of the virus still appearing. However, Australia seems to be following the global trend as more recent statistcs from STR show that early, post-pandemic

Glass House Mountain, supplied by Visit Sunshine Coast

recovery varies widely depending on where your business is located.

Gold Coast targets locals and South Australians, but the nation’s favourite playground is suff ering.

“Some operators are faring bett er than others,” Destination Gold Coast’s Executive Director of Marketing, Carla Anderson confi rmed.

“Particularly those with business models that are less reliant on international travellers and those that have strong consumer relationships with the drive market. In the absence of key interstate markets of Sydney and Melbourne, now is the time to encourage Queenslanders to venture here, but also to mobilise Gold Coasters to be tourists in their own city. The Gold Coast’s reputation as a safe destination is a priceless asset to drive momentum for our tourism recovery as travel confi dence remains a key infl uencer in determining booking behaviour at this critical time,” Carla told us. that in 2020, COVID-19 will cost Gold Coast’s tourism sector between $3.3 billion to $4.3 billion, with a potential loss of some 6 to 9 million visitors.

“Contextually, in 2019 the Gold Coast att racted a record 14.2 million total visitors… so the gravity of this impact to Gold Coast’s visitor economy cannot be understated.

“The recovery of the tourism sector is a progressive journey, and will no doubt be determined by key factors that infl uence travel confi dence, which we know will continue to return as restrictions are eased domestically. The Gold Coast has seen gradual growth since July and we’re cautiously optimistic in expecting this upward trend to continue well into next year, although we know it will take some time, before we see domestic visitation return to pre-COVID levels.

“A more recent trend we’ve seen is an uptick in travellers booking last minute trips to the Gold Coast to take advantage of value-for-money deals.” Destination Gold Coast told us it is working with a fl exible plan to ensure that destination marketing remains agile in a shift ing landscape, to target key markets that are most likely to be responsive to our eff orts.”

Manager of Surfers’ beachfront apartments, Viscount on the Beach, Amber Woodroff confi rmed that her resort has been largely empty since mid-March and due to the recent Queensland border closures she now has cancellations for the September and October holidays.

She explained: “I have found that all the people who used to come from Victoria, ACT and Tasmania for longer stays over the cooler months are not coming and Queenslanders are not coming to the Gold Coast either. I think many Queenslanders are ‘going bush’ or north, to places they cannot usually aff ord.

“There is a fi ne line with pricing because you don’t want to go so low that you get the wrong kind of clientele, but you also can’t stay the same,” she admitt ed.

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“I’m sad as well. I’ve been getting phone calls from my regulars who come up every year and they are not happy, but most have moved bookings forward to 2021.”

However, she did have a full weekend recently (the first time since last Christmas) and attributed this to Brisbane’s EKKA long weekend.

For now, she said: “I’m trying to take care of past guests, enticing them with great deals, after all people need holidays now more than ever for their mental health. I’m hoping that our beach location will help me compete against the big multi-nationals who can substantially lower their prices.” Amber is currently surviving on JobKeeper and is worried that Queensland Tourism’s push for people to go to places they have not visited before could discourage people from heading to the Gold Coast.

Trevor Rawnsley, Australian Resident Managers Association (ARAMA) CEO is also worried about the effects on mental health, he is concerned that Queenslanders lives are being put at risk by the Government trying to eliminate the virus.

He said: “What I mean by the lives of Queenslanders being put at risk is that many of our ARAMA members are in severe mental stress from the prospect of not being able to trade and

conduct their business due to the border closure. I have never seen anything like it.”

As a result, ARAMA is now offering free counselling to members via a network of professional counsellors.

Carla added: “Although recovery is going to take some time, we are focused on regaining our domestic share, while also capturing outbound demand that remains high for the Gold Coast and will continue to be as international borders remain closed.

“We have remained nimble during this unprecedented period and in early May, pioneered a scalable marketing recovery plan to time market forces. Queensland’s early success to flatten the COVID-19 curve allowed us to anticipate that the drive market would be the first catchment to open up.”

In mid-June, the body launched a $1.5 million Queensland-centric campaign to encourage more locals and Queenslanders to explore their own backyard. They included localised marketing within the Gold Coast by asking locals to support the sector and businesses of all stature who need tourism dollars and they have trialled marketing in South Australia to capitalise on and support the new aviation route direct from Adelaide into the Gold Coast. Carla revealed: “Further afield, interstate, Destination Gold Coast retains a watchful eye over COVID-19 developments to reassess all domestic markets and any destination marketing activity as it becomes viable. Travel confidence remains a key influencer in determining booking behaviour.”

Gold Coast’s 4,600 tourism businesses and 60,000-strong workforce have displayed extraordinary resilience and ability to innovate in response to COVID-19.

“The global impacts of COVID-19 are being felt right around the country, so we know that Gold Coast’s economy will take a few years to recover from the fallout of this pandemic - though we know that tourism, the region’s main economic driver, will be instrumental in its recovery. We are in a fortunate position where we can leverage our highly successful brand ‘Australia’s favourite playground’ to entice our bread and butter domestic market. That said, support from all three tiers of government, including the extension of the JobKeeper payment, continue to provide vital measures of support for the tourism sector.”

Sunshine Coast makes in-roads with the drive market

might be in pole-position, but some coastal resorts are on a “knife edge”.

Craig Davidson, interim CEO at Visit Sunshine Coast told us: “The impact of COVID-19 hasn’t been uniform across the region. Clearly, loss of interstate and international (particularly New Zealand) markets has impacted the region, but we moved very quickly to target the drive market and so areas like the Sunshine Coast Hinterland have experienced a highly successful winter.

“This has been fuelled by the Brisbane and south-east Queensland travellers, who – rather than flying overseas to escape the winter - have actually chosen to embrace the cold, opting for log fires, red wine, and long walks. Many accommodations have enjoyed their best-ever winter, though the region’s usually popular wedding season in spring is likely to be badly affected by COVID restrictions.

“Some of the coastal resort areas have been more impacted by the loss of interstate and international business, but the region has looked to innovative solutions such as the launch of direct services by Alliance Airways from Cairns, targeting the north Queensland market.

“Visit Sunshine Coast moved to a Queensland-focused strategy quite some time ago because the issue of borders was always likely to be volatile. We had been hopeful that regional NSW would have remained open because that was our strongest growth

Photo courtesy of Mackay Tourism

market in 2019, but having some four million people within a 300km radius of the Sunshine Coast - who can only holiday within Queensland - means that we have a very powerful market.

“Some of our resort areas have reported reductions of business by over 40 percent because of the loss of Victorian, NSW and New Zealand business, but beach areas like Caloundra have enjoyed good occupancies with strong support from Brisbane. Operators have been reporting much shorter lead times on bookings and shorter stays generally, which has placed pressure on resourcing when combined with a lack of staff to choose from.

“Weekends have been very popular across the Sunshine Coast region, with the Ekka longweekend in August seeing hotels in places such as Mooloolaba full.

However, hotels and destinations that rely on groups and conferences have found the winter season more challenging, though some of them have been able to substitute traditional business with football and netball teams from interstate. It has really highlighted the Sunshine Coast’s sporting pedigree, and sports/outdoors related business will undoubtedly grow significantly in the future.

“Government programs such as JobKeeper have undoubtedly lessened the impact of Covid-19, as have many of the State and Sunshine Coast Council measures, but the prolonged closure of borders meant that many accommodation and tourism businesses have been operating on a knife edge.

Image supplied by Capricorn Enterprise

State and federal government support to assist with deferring any fees and charges for tourism businesses will assist with cash flow and help them along. Getting the virus under control in the southern states, and then a progressive reopening of borders in time for summer, will be essential if some operators are to recover.

“The times have definitely changed and will have long-term implications. Destinations that emphasise nature, health and well-being, spaciousness and authenticity are in pole-position in the current environment, and fortunately the Sunshine Coast is ideally placed to benefit from our reputation in this area. We have built our brand over many years on a “Naturally Refreshing” theme and will build on this with a new brand launch in Spring to further emphasise our credentials in this area. We have also attracted key people – such as Jenny Aitken in New Zealand – to prepare for an eventual relaxation in borders.”

Eric Van Meurs manager of Sunshine Coast Resort, Atlantis Marcoola was optimistic. He told us: “Queenslanders have proven to be very resilient and eager to travel and we’ve been very pleased with the way the bookings were initially impacted due to the closure and then reversed with bookings coming from Queenslanders.”

Although he saw thousands of dollars’ worth of bookings cancelled within 3-4 days of the latest border closure announcement, they were

He said: “We are fortunate to have 80 percent return guest traffic and so even just addressing our return guests from Queensland has generated extremely positive responses. Discounting is not the answer, it really is about working hard and trying to get a continuous stream of bookings and traffic flow into the facilities.

“We’ve done very little discounting! We’ve done a tremendous amount of lowcost promotion and focused everything on direct bookings. You really don’t know from one week to the next what the rules of the game are really going to look like, and so you just need to be very mobile and pliable.”

Eric hopes that, with any luck, weekending Queenslanders will continue to fill the gaps in bookings left by southern state visitors who usually stay this time of year to escape the cold.

Gladstone and the Discovery Coast: Agnes waters, 1770, and campsites are nearing capacity!

Gus Stedman, CEO of Gladstone Area Promotion and Development Limited told us: “Initially, the impacts of COVID restrictions heavily impacted our region’s tourism industry. However, with the easing of Queensland restrictions we have seen a noticeable upswing in visitor numbers, our operators on the Discovery Coast have been especially busy.

“The Gladstone Region initially marketed heavily within the region to encourage locals to holiday in their backyard. This was through radio advertising, print and social media. We have also been leveraging off the great work TEQ has done on the ‘Good To Go’ campaign, reaching the South East corner. Looking forward we are now focusing on our 400km drive radius and planning some great marketing initiatives to increase visitation from our surrounding regions and the drive market. “Our members are reporting reasonably strong numbers for this time of the year and we are delighted to see so many first-time visitors coming into the region. Agnes Water and 1770 has been nearing

“In particular, the caravan parks on the Discovery Coast are nearly booked out weeks in advance. Our operators are happy with the return of visitors, however hoping that this influx continues in the weeks/months to come. Heron Island has also been reporting great visitation back to the island since the easing of restrictions, again hoping this continues. “Being a small region with a focus on the drive market we would like some more support for directional signage to the region. To become a destination of choice for relaxation, reefs, beaches, hinterland escapes and good old-fashioned service. A known gateway to the Southern Great Barrier Reef.”

Capricorn Coast “drive market” aids recovery but island operators plead for extended lease/land tax relief

Feedback from regional tourism body, Capricorn Enterprise is mixed.

Prior to the second border closure, operators advised that bookings had been strong and the June/July school holiday period was busy as the industry braced for more the uncertainty. Feedback from regional operators dating back to the last school holidays was positive. Maria Harms from Bronsan Pty Ltd, noted: “School holidays are off to a cracker start with the van park full, hundreds of people on tours every day.” Amanda Hinton from Capricorn Caves said: “We [had] fantastic bookings for the June/ July holidays (more pre-bookings than we have ever had by far).”

The second border closure was not totally unexpected, though still concerning, and local operators felt they were in a stronger position the second time around. Operators told us they are seeing bookings cancelled from interstate travellers but on the flipside, they are retaining visitors longer in Queensland; for instance, caravan travellers have decided to continue their stay in the Sunshine State, rather than return to southern states.

Capricorn Enterprise has been promoting the concept of Queenslanders supporting Queenslanders, which has benefitted forward bookings to

Hinchinbrook Family supplied by Townsville Enterprise, Photo: Megan Mackinnon

date marketing. Alyssah said: “The entire industry is grateful to locals supporting locals, the 400- 600km drive radius is a significant visitor market and geographically our region has an advantage. Our operators understand the challenges that come with COVID-19 and are implementing measures and business improvements along the way are adapting to their new ‘normal’.”

Despite intense travel restrictions, the Capricorn Coast Visitor Information Centre welcomed 2356 domestic and 67 international visitors to the Visitor Information Centre throughout the months of June/ July, in comparison to the same period in 2019, which welcomed a total of 3368 guests (3081 domestic and 287 international) – a drop of only 725 domestic and 220 international.”

NOTE: this is not entire visitors to the region – just those who visited the information centre.

Throughout the testing months of April and May, Capricorn Enterprise rolled out the first two phases of the region’s recovery campaign, enticing visitors to explore their backyards and support our local tourism industry.

Alongside Tourism and Events Queensland’s ‘Good to Go’ promotions there are positive signs of slowly rebuilding our destination’s battling tourism sector.

Capricorn Enterprise’s CEO Mary Carroll said: “Our local businesses and members have been incredibly grateful for the constant support they have received from us as their Regional Tourism Organisation. Both federal and state government support to the tourism industry has been substantial. However, with uncertainty surrounding border closures and loss of bookings, we are asking the state government to provide an additional six month lease/ land tax relief particularly for our island operators. The extension of JobKeeper for businesses is most appreciated.

“Fortunately, for Central Queensland, we have $4.5 billion worth of major projects underway and planned for the next decade, as well as a diverse economy including resource/ mining, agriculture, transport/ logistics, health, education, so our regional economy is healthy.

The tourism sector will benefit from this regional growth and job creation. The development of Great Keppel Island Resort and Keppel Bay Convention Centre in Yeppoon are two major tourism projects which will take our destination appeal to the next level.”

Tas Webber, chief executive officer of Mackay Tourism told

us: “The relevant domestic and international visitor survey statistics are not yet available to quantify any reductions in visitor numbers, however antidotal evidence suggests COVID-19 caused a significant downturn in visitors to the region. With the easing of restrictions, Mackay Tourism is pleased to report a strong recovery in visitation as tourism in The Mackay Region looks set to return pre-COVID growth.”

Townsville’s strong drive market and new tourism projects aid recovery!

Lisa Woolfe, Director of visitor economy and marketing for regional body, Townsville Enterprise told us: “The COVID pandemic and its evolving restrictions have continued to disrupt the tourism and hospitality industry in Townsville North Queensland, and like many of our neighbouring regions, our visitor numbers are reflective of this with reduced visitation across both

Family beach courtesy of Visit Sunshine Coast

tourism and hospitality in what is typically our peak season.

“While we have seen reduced visitation as compared with other years, we are still seeing a relatively strong demand from our drive market from Cairns to Mackay and west to Mount Isa, which continues to occupy close to 70 percent of our typical tourism market. Townsville North Queensland is uniquely placed with new tourism products set to aid the region’s recovery substantially, particularly with the recent launch of the Southern Hemisphere’s first underwater museum, the Museum of Underwater Art, which is now open to domestic travellers.

“Our region also continues to work closely with neighbouring RTOs and we have collaborated on a driving holiday campaign to encourage Queenslanders to take a holiday in the north, with a dedicated website, and substantial social media advertising investment.

“Members, operators and hospitality managers continue to navigate the COVID restrictions as they look to rebuild their business, but admit that while there is strong local support and patronage, the ongoing restrictions are prohibitive to their long-term viability, particularly with changes to the government support packages.

“Townsville Enterprise will continue to advocate for our members to receive the support they need to regain confidence in the industry and rebuild their businesses, while remaining sensitive to the evolving health situation in other parts of our State and Nation.”

Tropical North Queensland went from 55,000 visitors a day to 5,000

Tourism Tropical North Queensland (TTNQ) Chief Executive Officer Mark Olsen told us: “COVID had cost the region more than $1 billion in visitor expenditure and that figure could be as high as $2.2 billion by December. Tourism generated $3.5 billion into the regional economy in the 12 months before borders closed with 55,000 visitors a day compared to the 5,000 we have now.”

According to Mark, TTNQ led the charge to lobby state and federal politicians for assistance, including asking for a wage subsidy which resulted in JobKeeper, one of the many lifelines enabling businesses to continue trading.

Last month he said: “Tropical North Queensland has the greatest number of businesses on JobKeeper of any region in Australia and 70 per cent of the region’s businesses are still closed. We are grateful the federal government will continue JobKeeper beyond September and would like to see an extension of other relief measures by the state government.

“Businesses need the Queensland government’s Business Support Program extended to June 2021. This includes permit and application fee waivers, port and passenger charge waivers, payroll and land tax reductions and rental assistance. We also ask for a full fee waiver on commercial vehicle and vessel registration until June 2021 for businesses on JobKeeper, additional loans for businesses in tourism dependent communities and for funds in the Industry Support Package to be quarantined for significant employers in tourism and tourism dependent communities.

“This support will ensure our destination retains the visitor experiences that have made the Cairns and Great Barrier Reef region Australia’s most desirable nature-based coastal and aquatic destination. The Cairns and Great Barrier Reef region has what the world wants once travel resumes - space, warmth and an environment that makes us Sir David Attenborough’s favourite place on Earth.

“TTNQ is working hard to ensure we take advantage of this so we can grow market share in the post-COVID world. The ‘See Great, Leave Greater’ marketing campaign was reshaped to suit the rapidly changing domestic marketplace with the enviable result of Cairns now the number one region in Australia for Google travel searches.”