Australia Accommodation
Monday, January 24, 2011
Australia Day Gun Salute - 1 Parkland Boulevard, Brisbane
Where: Lake Precinct
When: Wednesday 26th January 2011
11:00am – 1:00pm with guns firing at 12:00pm
Attendance: Open to public viewing
Road Closures: From 11:45am – 12:15pm (exclusion time) access along Parkland
Boulevard and the parking bays from the ‘T’ section of Parkland
Crescent through to ½ way along Boulevard where yellow pole is (in
both directions) will be restricted.
For safety reasons, there will be no traffic movement permitted
in this area during this exclusion time.
Public Access: Free attendance; event is open to public viewing outside of marked
exclusion zone. Refer to road closure item above.
Contact: Sharee Bryen 3006 4539 or 0439 879 361 during business hours
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Queensland Ready for Tourists After Floods
QUEENSLAND tourism is urging people to come to non-affected areas such as the Sunshine Coast and Cairns and not to cancel bookings, even to Brisbane and Toowoomba.
Holidays and trips to many parts of Queensland have been cancelled, as well as conferences planned for Brisbane this month. Bookings to many tourist spots have also dried up.
But Tourism Queensland CEO Anthony Hayes said people should check directly with their booking agency or operator before cancelling trips as the places they are going to may not be affected.
"The vast majority of our tourism areas haven't actually been affected in any way - tropical north Queensland, the Whitsundays, the Sunshine Coast, the Gold Coast have not been affected at all,” he said.
“And the challenge for us is to get that message out there, to make sure people know we're open for business.''
Out of 20 major airports in the state, only one is closed - Rockhampton.
"The discussion at the moment is how do we make sure that Easter is a success. So much of it will be cleaned up by Easter anyway,'' Mr Hayes said.
Even a key tourism operation right in the middle of Brisbane, River Life, re-opened, he said.
He said Tourism Queensland was looking at a number of new campaigns and PR opportunities, even though it had only got back into its building.
Working with the regional tourism organisations, he said a new message would be out in the marketplace in the next few months.
"There will be a number of aggressive marketing messages out in the marketplace in the coming months,'' Mr Hayes said.
"It's so frustrating, half of Queensland's under water but that still means half the size of Europe is not.''
Neil Scanlon, hotel chain Accor's regional general manager for Queensland, echoed Mr Hayes' comments.
People think the entire tourism industry has shut down but this is far from the truth, he says. In fact, even Accor's four hotels in Brisbane were not affected by the floods.
The Queensland tourism industry is alive and well.''
But so far no specific stimulation has been announced to get the industry going again.
He said it was impossible to know when people would start coming back but admitted, ``2011 will be a disaster when it comes to local, domestic tourism''.
While he believes corporate business will bounce back fairly quickly, tourism will be impacted by the flow on effect from the conference market.
"We've already seen that, with fairly large city-wide conferences already cancelling for January.
''I just think there is such a great unknown.
I would envisage our business that comes from the two to three hour drive market would be affected heavily for the next 12 months as people rebuild.''
But he said hotel companies such as Accor would be working closely with the Queensland Tourism Industry Council to stimulate tourism.
Flight Centre, which is based in Brisbane, and had to close its own office for a couple of days, is continuing its ads to consumers, and also pushing the message that business is as usual in places such as far north Queensland and the Sunshine Coast. It will also be working with tourism authorities to spread the message.
As far as the international market is concerned, Australia as a whole and Queensland is being heavily promoted.
"They can still come down to Sydney and have a nice weekend in Sydney and then fly to Cairns and go see the Barrier Reef,'' Mr Bowman said.
"Queensland is always popular so we're making sure we've got it in our ads. As different locations come back on stream we'll make sure we review that.
"I was on the Gold Coast on Saturday and you wouldn't have known we'd had a flood in Brisbane.''
Travel website Wotif.com General Manager Brands Megan Magill said on Monday that accommodation providers across Queensland were also wanting to send the same message.
"A lot of our accommodation providers are fighting the misconception that the whole state is under water, which is simply not the case,'' Ms Magill said.
"The Gold and Sunshine Coasts are very much business as usual, with a lot of hotels offering fantastic deals to bolster visits during this difficult period.”
Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce said the airline was maintaining schedules, despite a downturn in numbers.
He said the airline would allow all passengers with booked tickets for travel before January 21 the opportunity to change their flights or request a refund.
"Anybody that has plans to travel up to the 21st of January can take a complete full refund or change travel plans at no extra cost and that's available both on Qantas and on Jetstar,'' Mr Joyce said.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Monday, January 17, 2011
Monday, January 10, 2011
Queensland Tourism Devastated by Floods
The Queensland tourism industry was praying for a bumper Christmas-New Year bonanza to lift revenue badly impacted in recent times by the strong Australian dollar, GFC, slow domestic traffic, unrealised tourism promotions and the lure of overseas destinations; instead it has been hit by the worst possible scenario.
Queensland's worst ever floods are expected to cost the tourism industry well over $100 million as vast areas remain under water.
The drive market, in particular, has been devastated by road closures and evacuations of holiday parks throughout the state. Many areas, particularly Rockhampton, Bundaberg, Emerald and Dalby, have suffered total inundation and losses in the industry will be extreme.
Bundaberg North Burnett Tourism chairman Greg Barnes wants prospective visitors to know Bundaberg is open for business and needs people’s support.
Mr Barnes said since the new year, some operators had up to 40% of their bookings cancelled. “The flooding was a devastating event but from a tourism perspective we are back up and running,” he said.
“The highways are open, hotels are taking bookings and the roads in the CBD are open.”
Kelly’s Beach Resort in Bargara is just one of the region’s businesses to be hit with a number of cancellations. “Since the start of the new year people just started cancelling left, right and centre,” managing director Loni Hammond said.
“This is usually our busiest time, so it is pretty scary.”
"We shut down for a few days, then the water started to recede and we reopened because so many people couldn't get back out of town," said Brian Zemek, acting manager of the Burnett Riverside Quality Hotel. "Everyone is just trying to get the town up and running."
Hotel and motel managers are reporting very high vacancy rates across Gladstone, however, not from tourists coming to Gladstone, but from people trying to get to Rockhampton. Every day the Gladstone Marina has been packed with Central Queensland locals either coming to Gladstone or leaving for Rockhampton.
Gladstone Regional Council director of commercial and community services Cale Dendle said the Gladstone region has had its share of festive season travellers and visitors stranded, or unable to continue journeys. “Obviously, the closure of the Bruce Highway through Rockhampton also means that Gladstone is now the northern-most provincial city accessible by road from the south,” Mr Dendle said.
Mr Dendle added the closure of Rockhampton Airport has resulted in increased activity at the Gladstone Airport.
“The Capricorn Coast's peak 10-day trade over the Christmas and New Year period has on average suffered a 50% occupancy loss followed by a 70% loss for the remainder of January,'' said Capricorn Tourism and Economic Development’s CEO Mary Carroll.
Ms Carroll says the flooding has had a massive impact on all sectors including tourism, retail, mining, transport and real estate. "There's not one business that hasn't been affected from these floods whether directly or indirectly.”
Tourism Whitsundays chief executive officer Peter O’Reilly said caravan park operators and the backpacker market had been hardest hit since roads were cut due to widespread floodwaters.
“It’s obliterated the drive market,” Mr O’Reilly said. “One caravan park had 200 cancellations.”
The Airlie Beach Hotel had 170 room cancellations over the New Year’s period. General manager Mark Bell said some people didn’t travel to the Whitsundays because the roads were flooded, while others were reluctant to come in case they couldn’t get home again.
Mackay Tourism general manager Dave Phillips said Mackay accommodation providers had been getting a lot of cancellations since the floods hit. “People can’t get here, however, some people already here can’t move on,” Mr Phillips said.
Greyhound chief operating officer Tony Hopkins said services to many regional Queensland areas have been disrupted due to severe flooding and road closures. All customers booked on the affected services have been informed by call centre staff in advance and are able to open date their ticket for future travel.
Rockhampton Airport remains closed, with operations not expected to resume until at least January 11. QantasLink has already cancelled all flights to and from Rockhampton with further disruptions expected once the clean up begins. Brisbane Airport Corporation has pledged its support by donating $250,000 to the Premier’s Flood Relief Appeal.
The CEO of the Queensland Tourism Industry Council, Daniel Gschwind, says while the floods could cost the tourism industry $100 million the perceptual damage could be even greater.
“We don't know how many perception issues we will have to deal with, with people from interstate or possibly overseas concluding that going to Queensland is not a good idea, despite the fact that our major tourism destinations are perfectly fine and open for business.
We are very worried people will draw the wrong conclusion and assume the entire state of Queensland is somehow under water.
“We are a perception-driven industry and that often causes us more damage than the actual event, and that's a great concern to us.''
The difficulty, he says, is to get the message out that while the flood disaster is serious and businesses in the impact zones are suffering greatly, the majority of the state's tourism hot spots are unaffected.
Mr Gschwind said operators in the flood zones were really hurting.
“The regions around Rockhampton and Bundaberg contribute about $550 million to the economy in any given year,'' he said. “You take out effectively what will be a month, possibly two, you are talking in the tens - possibly up to $100 million of lost business just from those regions alone.''
Prime minister Julia Gillard and premier Anna Bligh have announced that small businesses and primary producers in 13 local government areas will be eligible to receive grants of up to $25,000 for clean up and recovery.
This targeted financial assistance will help them minimise their economic losses as they embark on the very difficult recovery period that lies ahead and help businesses start trading as soon as possible.
The grants will be made available immediately to Banana, Barcaldine, Bundaberg, Somerset, Central Highlands, Cherbourg, Lockyer Valley, North Burnett, Scenic Rim, South Burnett, Southern Downs, Western Downs and Woorabinda. Toowoomba has been added since the original announcement.
For small business Category C grants will help operators resume trading as soon as possible, including establishment costs in temporary premises. Category C assistance does not compensate for income losses and is not intended to replace insurance. The grant scheme will run until 30 September 2011.
Concessional interest rate loans of up to $250,000 for small business operators and primary producers, as well as freight subsidies of up to $5000, are available.
The additional grants come on top of the range of assistance already being provided by both the Queensland government and the Australian government. The Australian Government Disaster Recovery Payment is available for people who have been significantly impacted by the floods.
Death toll from Queensland flood waters on the rise
Floods waters are threatening the Queensland capital of Brisbane as the state continues to suffer from weeks of heavy tropical storms.
There are already eight people confirmed dead, half of them children, and 72 are still confirmed as missing.
Eight thousand Brisbane properties are at risk of being engulfed by the flood waters according to Brisbane city council. The threat is so serious that two riverside restaurants in Brisbane’s CBD have evacuated their businesses in preparation for rising flood waters.
Heavy rains and flash flooding savaged Toowoomba yesterday, with four people confirmed dead and dozens more missing. "This is without doubt our darkest hour in the past fortnight." Said Queensland Premier Anna Bligh.
What has been described by some as an inland tsunami took everyone totally by surprise. One eyewitness said people stood in stunned silence in Toowoomba city centre.
"It was kind of like everyone had just stopped ... standing in the middle of the road looking around," she said. "There were cars upside down, washed away, roads caved in... just crazy scenes."
Parts of the Sunshine Coast, one of Queensland’s main tourist regions, are also being threatened by rising river levels. A flood warning for the area has been reissued and a number of roads have been closed.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
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