Mayor claims win in push for Cairns visitor levy

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The Local Government Association of Queensland (LGAQ) has voted to support the Cairns Regional Council bid for the power to introduce a local visitor levy.

Mayor Bob Manning has been pushing for a 2.5 per cent visitor levy on short term accommodation to help fund campaigns to attract more visitors to Cairns.

Currently, Queensland law does not allow local governments to impose a visitor levy.

The LGAQ, meeting in Cairns, voted in favour of a motion asking the State Government to amend laws to allow councils to impose a visitor levy.

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The motion was carried with 170 votes for and 30 against.

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.

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“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.

And there have been calls to widen the scope.

Crystalbrook Collection owner and developer,  Ghassan Aboud, said in August it should not only apply to hotels. 

“Everybody who eats from this table (the tourism industry) should share to pay for the bill. Not only Crystalbrook Collection, not only five-star hotels.

“Anybody who is involved and eats from this industry, he should be part of this and pay his share.”

Speaking after the LGAQ vote, 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.

Cairns Regional Council said local governments and communities should have the option to implement a levy with all funds raised going to destination tourism organisations.