Cairns Aquarium CEO and Founder Daniel Leipnik said the 'Explore Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef' campaign had the potential to generate 10,000 additional visitors to the region, 20,000 airline seats and $15 million in revenue growth for the industry partners.

The unusual collaboration involves several of the city's leading tourism operators, attractions and a hotel including Cairns Aquarium, Dundees Restaurant, Skyrail Rainforest Cableway, Kuranda Scenic Rail, Down Under Cruise & Dive, Billy Tea Safaris, Novotel Oasis Resort and Virgin Australia. 

The tourism companies developed and launched the all-inclusive holiday package called 'Explore Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef' which includes a full itinerary of daytime excursions showcasing the very best experiences the campaign partners offer with excursions to the city's aquarium, outer reef, rainforest, outback and local restaurants. 

Instead of booking through a travel agent or online re-seller, the holiday package is booked directly with the Cairns Aquarium. The offering has been designed specifically with budget conscious holiday makers in mind and includes return flights from Melbourne, Sydney or Brisbane to Cairns without travellers having to worry about arranging their own flights.

Cairns Aquarium CEO and Founder Daniel Leipnik said travel had become a highly competitive space once again with capital cities, overseas destinations and even cruise ship providers offering discounted or reduced costs of travel. 

“Going the extra length of developing all-inclusive packages with flights and managing the booking process enables us to compete with other destinations and provide people with a very compelling reason to choose Cairns as their next holiday destination,” Mr Leipnik said.

'We've received over 700 booking requests for the Explore Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef package within the first 24 hours of launching the campaign. It's been such a tremendous and exciting response.

“We've converted a section of our offices into a reservations hub and hired two full-time staff in addition to seven existing reservations team members to process incoming bookings and respond to phone calls.

“Many of the customers had planned on a trip to Cairns during 2020 and 2021 but had to cancel due to lockdowns. People are so excited at the prospect of coming to Cairns and are so happy to be able to re-book a holiday. Calls are coming in from all over Australia.

“About half of the inquiries are from people who have never been to Cairns or seen the Great Barrier Reef before but always wanted to visit. Others had not considered Cairns until they were prompted by the campaign.

“The response has been so overwhelming, we are already planning future campaigns for holiday packages to Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef for families and international visitors.”

The concept was developed by the group over several months and forms part of a major tourism drive to grow domestic visitation after two years of closed borders and Government imposed lockdowns during Covid in 2020 and 2021 that saw billions of dollars in reduced trading revenue for the region's tourism operators.  

Despite a strong return of visitors to the Far North, with almost 2.5 million visitor arrivals in 2022, overall visitor numbers still remain at 20% less than pre-Covid levels. International arrivals into Cairns airport, which accounted for as much as 750,000 direct visitors to the region each year, remains low, accounting for less than 10% of the 2019 international arrival numbers.

Historically many of the region's tourism operators have relied heavily on international visitors as part of their revenue base. But with a 90% reduction in international travellers and as more and more Australians choose to holiday overseas, the campaign tourism partners have banded together, rather than working separately, to create greater awareness of the destination and incentivise travellers to holiday in Australia.   

“Cairns tourism operators have always worked closely together to attract domestic and international tourists to the destination but this campaign has enabled the local industry to collaborate strategically in their efforts,” Mr Leipnik said.

“We're very much focused on actions that can contribute to overall efforts by Tourism Australia, Tourism and Events Queensland and the region's local tourism authority, Tourism Tropical North Queensland, to grow tourism revenue back for Tropical North Queensland to over $5 billion a year.

“As the industry awaits the return of tourists from key international markets such as Japan, China, New Zealand, the United States and Europe to pre-Covid levels, joining forces as industry peers rather than competitors is proving to be a valuable model as the industry rebuilds.”