Minister for Tourism and Fair Trading
The Honourable Peter Lawlor
30 December 2009

Signs are positive that Queensland's tourism industry is looking forward to a buoyant 2010 Tourism Minister Peter Lawlor said today.

Mr Lawlor said the Tourism Forecasting Committee's latest report predicted that Queensland's domestic and international tourism industries would improve in 2010 after one of the toughest year's on record.

"The number of nights Australians spend in Queensland in 2010 is predicted to jump by 2.2 percent next year to more than 71 million, while the number of nights international visitors spend in our state is predicted to increase by 2.5 percent to over 40 million," Mr Lawlor said.

"2009 has been a tough year for our tourism industry and this is our most positive indicator yet that we may be through the worst."

Mr Lawlor said visitors from most of Australia's key international markets including the UK, US, China, Germany and India were expected to grow during 2010.

The New Zealand market was expected to remai n steady, however Japan was expected to continue to struggle.

"The economic outlook for our tourism industry in 2010 is predicted to be substantially brighter than in 2009, but we will still expect to see a hangover from the global financial crisis and fragile consumer confidence," Mr Lawlor said.

"But the good news is that people around the world are expected to start travelling again and when they do we want to make sure a Queensland holiday is top of their mind."

Mr Lawlor said during 2009 Tourism Queensland had changed its domestic marketing focus towards hard-hitting, tactical campaigns which offered fantastic deals to encourage Australians to book a Queensland holiday now. This tactic would continue into 2010.

"These campaigns have generated millions of dollars and thousands of bookings for Queensland's tourism operators when they have needed it most and helped us grow our share of the domestic market by one percent in the year ended Sep tember 2009," Mr Lawlor said

Mr Lawlor said indicators were also positive for Queensland's international markets as overseas visitors were staying longer and spending more in the state.

"In the year ended September 2009, two million international visitors spent more than 40 million nights and almost $4 billion in Queensland," Mr Lawlor said.

"This was an extra 521,000 nights and an extra $64 million throughout the state than during the same period last year, all good news for our tourism industry."

Mr Lawlor said Tourism Queensland was also seeing some positive indicators that the highly successful Best Job in the World campaign was starting to have an impact on the number of international visitors travelling to the state.

"There are some early signs Tourism Queensland's Best Job in the World campaign is influencing young British and European travellers to visit Queensland," he said.

"Brits and western Europeans have been follo wing Ben Southall's adventures as Caretaker of the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef most closely and the online nature of the campaign has appealed to the under-30s more than any other."

Mr Lawlor said while it was still too early to say that the state's tourism industry was out of the woods, the signs for a positive 2010 were good.

"More than 222,000 Queenslanders owe their living to tourism which makes it one of the state's highest employers and second largest export earner.

"In 2010 Tourism Queensland and the State Government will continue to support the industry on the road to economic recovery."

Further information:
Minister's Office - Phone: 3224 2002
Tourism Queensland - Phone: 3535 5010