June 26, 2017
The South Burnett Regional Council may break away from the Southern Queensland Country regional tourism board and redirect resources to a new local tourism group instead.
South Burnett Mayor Keith Campbell made the bombshell announcement when he delivered his 2017-18 Budget speech on Monday.
“It would be fair to say that tourism is at a crossroads,” the Mayor said.
“The has been widespread criticism of how the promotion of tourism is currently structured and funded through our regional tourism organisation, South Queensland Country Tourism.
“This has galvanised local operators to create or be part of two new local tourism organisations, Visit South Burnett and Darling Downs Tourism.”
The Mayor said he felt tourism had been very disjointed in the region, but was pleased to see local operators banding together to sell the South Burnett as a tourism destination.
“Like economic development, tourism needs to be promoted by the operators themselves, and our role is to assist and support their efforts,” the Mayor said.
“Over the next month or so we will be undertaking a review of this role, including a decision on our membership of Southern Queensland Country Tourism and future funding models for local tourism organisations.”
In another part of his speech, Mayor Campbell said part of the “budget black hole” that will lead the Council to reduce its staff in the coming year was a $225,000 shortfall in tourist revenues at Lake Boondooma and the Yallakool Tourist Park.
It is believed SQC has received the blame for this, a position made worse by that organisation’s recent claims that tourism spending hit a record high over the past year.
In January, Toowoomba businessman John Wagner took to the media to make a scathing attack on SQC, claiming it was an “absolute joke” and a “disgrace”.
In May, Mr Wagner announced he was forming the new breakaway local tourism organisation – Tourism Darling Downs – with a mandate to promote everything within a two-hour drive of Toowoomba.
This would include the area from Wondai to Blackbutt, but exclude Murgon and the two dams.
Tourism Darling Downs was launched at a gala function at Wellcamp Airport earlier this month, and has already begun a recruitment drive to sign up South Burnett tourism operators.
An alternative local group – Visit South Burnett – has also recently been formed, and has already held preliminary discussions with the South Burnett Regional Council.
It is believed the South Burnett will wait for Toowoomba Regional Council to bring down its own Budget before coming to a final decision.
Toowoomba Mayor Paul Antonio said earlier this year he was open to looking at different approaches to funding tourism.
Tourism and Events portfolio leader Cr Geoff McDonald said Toowoomba Council was looking at a number of models to support the tourism sector.
These would be considered ahead of this year’s Budget deliberations, Cr McDonald said.
Toowoomba Regional Council is currently the largest single contributor to Southern Queensland Country.
Others are the Southern Downs, Western Downs, Goondiwindi and South Burnett Regional Councils, along with Balonne Shire Council.
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