Data study unveils the strength of central western Qld tourism

The study, undertaken by tourism industry specialists Stafford Strategy found the value of the visitor economy is much stronger in all council areas of the central west than state government statistics suggested.

Alan Smith owns adventure tour company Outback Aussie Tours said the data reveals something that operators have been working towards for years.

"This is the busiest the outback tourism has been in my 35 years running Outback Aussie Tours," Mr Smith said.

"People inside Queensland are wanting to stay in Queensland, and it's allowing a the outback to sink into the hearts and minds of Australian tourists."

"It's already a guarantee that next year, outback tourism is going to be even bigger."

Mr Smith said despite the silver lining of the pandemic sending tourism their way, it has made business equally as hard.

"We've had to cancel nearly $600,000 worth of bookings because of border situation and Brisbane's recent lockdowns," he said.

Mr Smith said that there it is important for the momentum behind outback tourism to continue to grow as we begin to come out of the pandemic.

"We are in a really strong position to be invested in, we're seeing more couples and families than ever before," he said.

"The market has completely changed, older tourists who may be more vulnerable to coronavirus are looking to safer holidays than cruise ships and overseas."

Under this study, all local government areas in the RAPAD region are counted and their data is collected and checked against local sources.

Chief researcher Albert Stafford said the data collected paints an entirely new picture of the state of outback tourism.

"For some regions, the difference between government statistics what we were able to find was up to 30pc under-reported," Mr Stafford said.

"This means we have a much better picture of exactly how many people are travelling through the region, why they are here, how many nights they are staying and how much they are spending."

"The study looked at the larger centres like Longreach Barcaldine and Winton but also collected data on communities often overlooked by state or national surveys, like Windorah, Boulia and Bedourie."

The study analysed the affect the pandemic had on the region's tourism sector - the closed international borders did not cause any major interruptions.

"As expected the figures for 2020 did drop but not much, the surprise was that visitation rose strongly in the September to December period, there was also a significant growth in the family market," Mr Stafford said.

Outback Queensland Tourism Association (OQTA) Chair and Blackall-Tambo Mayor Andrew Martin said the report highlights how much potential the sector has to grow when international travel does resume.

"Outback Queensland has been working it's backside off for many, many years to get to this situation, and we know what we've got to offer," Cr Martin said.

"We need to now take it to the next step, with more product development, more assistance to get start up businesses off the ground and we need more work on telecommunications."

"We need to keep developing our tourism sector so that when international borders do open we can rise to the challenge."

Longreach Council executive officer Simon Kuttner said it the data collection is "invaluable" and gives local government more confidence when making investment decisions.

"This project lets us take control of our own data, region by region, and paint a far more accurate picture of one of our most significant growth industries," Cr Kuttner said.

"The communities of the central-west experience data deficiencies in almost all areas of research, simply because our sample sizes are often too small to generate the kind of granular detail that makes for meaningful conclusions."

"This is especially true for tourism, which isn't captured as a stand-alone industry in statistical data."