{"id":174022,"date":"2017-03-29T18:45:58","date_gmt":"2017-03-29T08:45:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/?p=174022"},"modified":"2020-07-14T19:42:26","modified_gmt":"2020-07-14T09:42:26","slug":"record-visitors-to-tourism-region","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2017\/03\/29\/record-visitors-to-tourism-region\/","title":{"rendered":"Record Visitors To Tourism Region"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Southern Queensland Country Tourism CEO Mary-Clare Power<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

March 29, 2017<\/strong><\/p>\n

A record 2.1 million visitors came to Southern Queensland Country over the past 12 months, according to the latest National Visitor Survey Domestic Tourism Snapshot.<\/p>\n

Southern Queensland Country Tourism – the regional tourism organisation responsible for the South Burnett, Toowoomba, Darling Downs, Southern Downs, Granite Belt and Western Downs – welcomed the\u00a0\u00a0Snapshot results which were released on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Overnight stays reached 6.4 million nights while expenditure was a record $830.4 million, up 44.6 per cent year-on-year.<\/p>\n

SQCT CEO Mary-Clare Power said that while the latest results were good, her main focus was “long-term growth, underpinned by strategic planning”.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have had very good results in this quarter, year-on-year but we shouldn\u2019t be fixated on the short-term, because when we focus on data in isolation we get a skewed seasonal picture,” she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to look at the long term growth of the region \u2013 we saw the uproar that the last set of results caused – my hope is that those detractors consider the bigger picture and now take a more balanced view.”<\/p>\n

Ms Power is referring to a proposal to form an independent tourism organisation based in Toowoomba.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The idea was reportedly mooted by\u00a0Wellcamp Airport developer John Wagner in January.<\/p>\n

southburnett.com.au<\/strong> understands that meetings to discuss this possibility have already been held.<\/p>\n

\u201cI urge people to look at this in an holistic manner and examine the trends and steady growth over the last few years and how well our whole region is performing alongside other regions,\u201d Mr Power said.<\/p>\n

She said this quarter\u2019s positive results were very pleasing and “validated the work the organisation has been doing in partnership with industry over the last three years”.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur growth strategy of targeting the short-break market is working – this is where we are seeing results – we are now seeing continued double digit growth in holiday overnight trips by Brisbane people, \u201d \u00a0Ms Power said.<\/p>\n

Overnight visitors from Brisbane increased by 18.5 per cent this quarter and 15 per cent \u00a0in the previous quarter ending September 2016.<\/p>\n

Ms Power said it was encouraging to see growth in business visitor numbers in the December 2016 results.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s wonderful to see some growth come back to the business sector after some disappointing results over the past several quarters, \u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Ms Power said she was happy with the region\u2019s performance but the organisation would keep working hard to attract the short break market whilst developing other opportunities.<\/p>\n