At the same time, the strong Australian dollar means Australians are taking their holidays abroad and domestic leisure tourism, a huge mainstay of its tourism industry, is feeling the pinch.

This is why Federal Tourism Minister Martin Ferguson, speaking at the Australian Tourism Exchange (ATE) in Sydney this weekend, urged all Australians to take a holiday in Queensland this coming Easter.

“We need to help our friends in Queensland,” he said, when he launched TQual, a new service quality accreditation launched by the Australian government to ensure service standards are kept high for visitors.

Geoff Dixon, chairman of Tourism Australia, speaking to WIT at ATE also said, “90% of Queensland is not damaged by the cyclones and the floods and it is very much business as usual. We must get that message out.”

Tourism Queensland is not taking the setbacks lying down. It has launched a slew of campaigns in an effort to revive its $9.2 billion tourism industry and at ATE, it was shouting about a new competition that it hopes will do for it what “The Best Job In The World” did couple of years back.

The new competition called “Million Dollar Memo” is aimed at the corporate meetings and incentives sector and calls on companies to put together a 60-second video on why they think their company is so great to work for and why Queensland would make a great incentive destination.

The competition will consist of three phases; a Top 50 short-list, a Final 20 list and an Incentive Challenge which will see a representative of the final 20 companies travel to Queensland to compete in an Incentive Challenge to be held in unique locations throughout the State from August 23. From that challenge, one winner will be chosen.

The prize: One million dollars of travel prizes to be spent in Queensland and the trip can be taken between June 2012 and July 2013.

The Million Dollar Memo is open to anyone from any organisation, company, business or workplace in any country and will run from 18 March until 1 May and entries can be submitted at www.milliondollarmemo.com.

Minister for Tourism, Manufacturing and Small Business Jan Jarratt said the four-year global campaign, valued at $6.9 million, follows the Best Job in the World promotion and aims to position Queensland as one of the world’s leading destinations for the lucrative travel incentive market.

“In the 12 months to September 2010, 1.7 million Australian and international visitors undertook an incentive experience in Australia and spent over $1 billion,” Ms Jarratt said.

“Incentive travellers spend around 2.5 times more per day than regular visitors and approximately $334 million on their visits to Queensland each year.”

Ms Jarratt said the global promotion, which has been in the planning stages for 18 months, would further assist the State�s tourism industry following recent natural disasters. The $6.9 million campaign will include $4.4 million in Tourism Queensland funding and $2.5 million in partner contributions to be rolled out to 2013.

This is on top of the A$10 million joint federal-and-state fund which has been allocated for recovery initiatives under the “Nothing Beats Queensland” message. 

Announcing the fund, Queensland Premier Anna Bligh said, “More than 222,000 people are employed in the tourism sector in Queensland, and around 97 percent of tourism businesses are small or medium enterprises, so it is essential we make a big effort to tell the world that Queensland is open and ready right now to welcome visitors.”

Details of the $10 million domestic and international marketing initiatives included:

• $4.5 million for interstate marketing, including a brand and retail campaign under the tagline “Nothing beats Queensland – Where Australia Shines”. 

• $1 million for intrastate marketing encouraging Queenslanders to support their mates by holidaying at home and incorporating a “Queensland Pledge” from the state’s tourism operators to tell the world that that they are staging a comeback. 

• $1 million targeting New Zealanders as Queensland’s largest international market to begin in April;

• $800,000 for a global youth and adventure traveller campaign aimed at getting backpackers into Queensland to quickly inject new expenditure into Queensland’s destinations. 

• $700,000 for a global publicity blitz which brought in more than 100 international and domestic travel writers, news journalists and bloggers to Queensland in late March.

• $400,000 each for retail campaigns in Queensland’s top Japan, China and UK markets encouraging visitors from these countries to come and visit Queensland now. Activity to begin in April.

• $300,000 for marketing activity across the rest of Queensland’s international markets to begin in April.

A Tourism Queensland spokesperson said campaigns would be rolled out in Singapore and Malaysia in April, as well as China.

Given the crisis in Japan, which will put a dampener on outbound travel, promotions will be launched in Japan at a later date “when the time is right”. Japan remains a very important market for Queensland, said the spokesperson.

The top five international markets for Queensland in 2010 are NewZealand, UK, US, China and Jaopan.