The Lord Mayor’s Experience Development Incentive Grant Program will see five tourism operators help strengthen the value of the region’s tourism industry by showcasing the region’s unique attributes.

Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner said the program would encourage operators to expand their existing offerings and work in partnership with other operators to create unique experiences for visitors.

“From our mountains and rainforests to the west to our wonderful subtropical city lifestyle and the beauty of our bay and islands in the east, the Brisbane region is a fantastic destination,” Cr Schrinner said.

“We want to encourage our tourism operators to offer exceptional experiences that will enhance the destination appeal of the Brisbane region, be valued by our visitors and deliver greater economic benefits through increased visitor numbers and length of stay.

“Meaningful and memorable experiences provide visitors with a strong connection to the places they visit and the people they meet, which can last a lifetime.

“Exceptional experiences encourage visitors to share with their family and friends and through their social media channels, helping lure future and repeat visitors.

“Experience development was a key tourism allocation in the Brisbane City Council budget and the Lord Mayor’s Experience Development Incentive Grant Program engages our industry directly to make this happen.”

Announcement of the program came as the latest International and National Visitor Surveys from Tourism Research Australia revealed Brisbane was again attracting record visitor numbers and expenditure.

“International and Australian visitors to Brisbane reached an all-time high of 8.9 million and they spent a record $7.364 billion in the year to December 2018,” Cr Schrinner said.

“We saw record numbers of visitors arrive from our key markets of New Zealand and the US with strong growth in some of our Asian markets.

“Hong Kong grew 19.4 per cent to 39,000, Singapore rose 41.6 per cent to 41,000 and India climbed 9 per cent to 36,000 – all of these were record highs.

“Overall, the number of holiday visitors to the city grew strongly and we saw records broken in the visiting friends and relatives’ market and the business market respectively.

“Domestically, we saw records broken across the holiday, business and visiting friends and relatives’ markets.”

“Our continuous work to grow direct air routes to Brisbane, further develop our major events calendar and our overseas marketing activities with tourism partners are continuing to reap benefits.”

Tourism operators can submit enquiries for the Lord Mayor’s Experience Development Incentive Grant Program at "[email protected]".

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