by Mat Churchill

Price discounting and a transient workforce have been detrimental to the region according to Tourism Port Douglas and Daintree boss, Doug Ryan.

Mr Ryan said that the region's tourism industry has erred by focussing on pricing rather than the the experience people can have while here.

"What's happened over a number of years through the wholesalers and through marketing campaigns, there has been demand. . . to provide a promotion to get people here.

"There were promotions where you discounted your rate or you gave five days for the price of four. Over the last three years this has continued and this is the way that they've been driving the visitation to the region.

"I don't necessarily agree with that. I think you have to have those promotions to get immediate return on a particular campaign that you do, but my strong belief is that we have gone away from selling why you should be here instead of how cheap you can get here for," he said.

"This is something I've been pushing very hard with Tourism Australia, Tourism Queensland and TTNQ, to the stage of being an annoyance to them. But we really need to show people why it's so great to be here, not how cheap you can come here."

Mr Ryan said that marketing campaigns which focus on positive experiences will see wholesalers promote the area more heavily.

"If we spend our time marketing people enjoying themselves. . . if we can spend  $600,000 around Australia in the next three months just showing how good it is here, the wholesalers are going to follow suit. The wholesalers are going to jump on and put their own specials out there, with the product. That's going to work.

"But if we continually cheapen the destination, and that's what's happened . . .but we've done that because we haven't been getting the visitors. I think it's very very detrimental in the long run to the destination.

Another issue regularly commented on by The Newsport readers is the town's service levels. Many readers have demanded a stronger focus on improving the visitor experience so they will become repeat guests and spread the word to friends and family.

Leona Brown commented on The Newsport article 'What now for local tourism?'; "There is an assumption that the traders in Port Douglas at the moment do not consider that the number of tourists make their businesses viable. If these tourists do not have a good time then how do we expect them to give accolades to other future tourists."

Mr Ryan said employers need to spend time with their workers, especially those new to town, to ensure accurate information is passed on to their customers.

"I think every destination, no matter where you are, a major part of your marketing is your service levels, your infrastructure, that's part of the marketing of the region. To me it's a very very important part of this destination.

"It's the old 101 of marketing. If you're not giving the service, if you haven't got a clean room . . . if people aren't pleasant and nice to you then you won't come back.

"There's always room for improvement. One of the problems here is we've got such a transient workforce. So when people come into town I think it's very very important that the employers spend some time with their staff.

"They've got to be able to talk properly about the region. . .I think it's extremely important that we train those people and we give them the correct briefing on the town," he said.