Cairns one step closer to introducing a visitor levy
Richard Dinnen - Queensland Editor |
Queensland local governments will seek the power to impose visitor levies on tourists to help fund campaigns to attract more visitors.
The Local Government Association of Queensland (LGAQ) has voted to support a motion from Cairns Regional Council seeking a change of state laws to make local visitor levies possible.
Cairns Mayor, Bob Manning, has been pushing for a 2.5 per cent visitor levy on short term accommodation. Currently, Queensland law does not allow local governments to impose a visitor levy.
The LGAQ, meeting in Cairns, voted 170 to 30 in favour of seeking a change.
Mayor Manning said there’s strong support for measures that would give Queensland regions financial autonomy to promote their destinations.
“I’m not surprised at the result.
It’s just common sense that tourism destinations have the ability to raise their own funding and have control over how it is spent, rather than relying on State and Federal grants that can shrink dramatically depending on budget priorities.
“Our numbers show that a small 2.5 per cent levy per room, per night, will generate $16 million annually to be spent attracting more visitors to Cairns.
“Raising the same amount from ratepayers is just not feasible.
“A user-pays visitor levy is a much fairer way to ensure our tourism industry can thrive, while residents benefit from the flow-on impact to our economy and jobs.
“Today’s vote is an important step towards providing local governments with the choice to adopt a levy if it’s right for their community,” Councillor Manning said.
The proposal has generated controversy in tourism circles, with some operators saying the extra cost will deter visitors.
Others say it’s unfair to only tax accommodation providers, calling for a levy to be extended to restaurants and car rentals.
Tourism Tropical North Queensland CEO, Mark Olsen, said the levy will support effective destination marketing.
“The proposal is estimated to deliver an economic impact of $176 million to support close to 1000 new jobs and improve the liveability of tropical north Queensland.
“When you increase destination marketing, you get results, which is what we saw with the Federal Government’s $10 million investment over the past two years.
“That $10 million allowed TTNQ to achieve $300 million in campaign-generated direct visitor expenditure by investing in targeted campaigns and working with our tourism and aviation partners.
“On the back of this investment, we achieved record domestic visitor expenditure of $3.12 billion in 2021-2022.
“This success was a direct result of the increased funding. We need a sustainable long-term funding source to benefit the region into the future.”
The LGAQ will now commence discussions with the Queensland Government to determine how a visitor levy would be introduced.
