Cooktown Real Estate’s Ariah Bolton, TTNQ CEO Mark Olsen and Hamish and Isabella Haslop from Mungumby Lodge.
BOOSTING shoulder season travel and new off-season events have been mooted at the annual Cook Shire tourism planning workshop, held at the Seaview Motel last week.
Local tourism operators, Cook Shire Council, Tourism Tropical North Queensland and Cooktown Chamber of Commerce and Tourism members attended the event, which marks the third year of a partnership between the council, TTNQ and the chamber.
TTNQ chief executive Mark Olsen said it was a strong turnout for the session to plan how the three organisations would continue to work together to drive tourism in the region.
“The operators are optimistic about a strong winter tourism season and it is pleasing to hear they have had some real success in attracting high-spending visitors outside the traditional busy season with bookings strong through to November,” Mr Olsen said.
“Boosting shoulder season travel is the key to the future success of tourism in the Cook Shire and together we identified three priorities to help drive this.
“The first is to create a strong local network for referrals through operators experiencing each other’s products so that they can recommend each other.”
Mr Olsen said the second priority was building on last year’s regional tourism photo shoot to boost targeted media coverage in publications targeting off-season big-spenders in Queensland.
The third priority was to create new off-season events, and leverage the existing events calendar to grow the tourism shoulder season.
Mr Olsen said there was a real energy in Cook Shire, with lots of investment in existing products and new tourism experiences being developed.
“The Cooktown Seaview Motel where the event was hosted is being refurbished and it is stunning,” he said.
“There is a new focus on creating quality food and dining experiences as well as good quality product that meets the needs of the modern traveller.”
