Tourists wanting to book Queensland holidays have been responsible for a surge in demand at airports and with airlines and tourism booking platforms.
New data released by the Department of Tourism, Innovation and Sport show close to 146,000 people flew into Queensland’s largest airports over the Easter long weekend. 38,000 flew into Cairns, 50,000 into the Gold Coast, 40,000 into Brisbane and 17,900 to the Sunshine Coast.
Premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk said airlines were also reporting a huge surge in demand for trans-Tasman services, adding more than 230 flights per week to New Zealand’s major airports following the announcement of unrestricted travel both ways beginning this month.
The Premier said the Government’s record allocations to tourism were helping the industry recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“After a tough year for our tourism industry, things are starting to look up for many operators in some of our most important visitor destinations,” Ms Palaszczuk said.
“We’re investing millions of dollars in new marketing campaigns and to fast-track direct flights back to Queensland because we know this is an important part of our economic recovery plan.”
The recent surge in demand comes on top of a successful Christmas school holiday period, where latest Tourism Research Australia (TRA) figures show that, despite a January lockdown, the January holiday season brought the most visitors and visitor spend for Queensland in a year.
TRA’s Tourism Recovery Scenarios report also showed Queensland was mostly likely to recover faster than any other State or Territory, returning to pre-pandemic 2019 domestic tourism levels around March 2022.
