August 13, 2013

Southern Queensland Country Tourism – the organisation responsible for tourism promotion of the South Burnett, Toowoomba, Southern Downs and the Granite Belt – has been given a $210,000 grant by the State Government.

The money will be spent on Phase 2 of the organisation’s Autumn campaign ($136,100) and $74,000 on the “Southern Queensland Country Club” which promotes events and special offers.

The grants are part of almost $3 million distributed under the government’s Regional Tourism Organisation Contestable Grants Funding Scheme.

Tourism Minister Jann Stuckey said the grants would be used to leverage local tourism opportunities and support the State Government’s goal of doubling annual overnight visitor expenditure to $30 billion by 2020.

“At the inaugural DestinationQ Forum held in Cairns last June, our Government increased the funding available to RTOs and these projects will help further boost tourism in Queensland,” Ms Stuckey said

“The grants are in addition to the $4 million in core funding made available for the RTO network in 2013-14, bringing total government support to $7 million.”

Ms Stuckey said a committee was established to assess grant applications, which was made up of representatives from the Queensland Tourism Industry Council, Tourism Australia, Tourism and Events Queensland and the Department of Tourism, Major Events, Small Business and the Commonwealth Games.

“RTOs were encouraged to leverage their own contributions towards projects with those from partners including local governments, local tourism organisations, industry and other partners,” she said.

“Where grant applications have been successful, the State Government will match the destination’s cash contributions dollar-for-dollar.

“In addition, RTOs are eligible to receive an extra 50 per cent for every dollar of new local government funds contributed to their successful projects.”