Southern Queensland Country – the new amalgamated tourism organisation that represents the South Burnett, Toowoomba, the Darling Downs and Granite Belt – has been awarded $170,177 to conduct its Autumn marketing campaign.
Previously regional tourism organisations were alloted set amounts of annual funding, believed to have been about $200,000 for the then-South Burnett Toowoomba Golden West regional tourism organisation and $200,000 for Southern Downs (the two groups which merged to form Southern Queensland Country).
However, the new State Government changed this system to make the various RTOs bid in a “contestable” grant scheme.
Almost 50 applications for funding were received.
The grants were assessed by a committee made up of representatives from Tourism Queensland, Events Queensland, the Queensland Tourism Industry Council, Tourism Australia and the Department of Tourism, Major Events, Small Business and the Commonwealth Games.
Tourism Minister Jann Stuckey said RTOs were encouraged to work with local government, tourism organisations, industry and other partners, and where grant applications had been successful, the State Government matched contributions dollar-for-dollar.
The grant to Southern Queensland Country was part of $4 million in grants announced today by Ms Stuckey.
“At the inaugural DestinationQ Forum held in Cairns in June, our government doubled the funding available to RTOs and these projects will help significantly boost tourism in Queensland,” Ms Stuckey said.
“The successful applications were linked to DestinationQ outcomes and focused on cooperative marketing or product development that complemented our wider tourism strategy.”
