The World Science Festival Brisbane will receive $9 million over three years between 2024 and 2027, to support delivery of the event, while QMusic’s BIGSOUND event is getting $2.4 million over four years.
“We want to ensure Queensland is well positioned to showcase our world-class cultural infrastructure, significant collections, rich arts and cultural experiences and events, brilliant local talent and deep and ancient cultural identity when we take to the global stage in 2032,” said the state’s minister for the arts, Leeanne Enoch.
TEQ has had its funding increased to $125 million each year, while funding to support the Year of Accessible Tourism – which is this year – sits at $12 million, “increasing awareness and capability and for visitor experience development” in the space, according to the government.
As Queensland looks to grow its overnight visitor spend to $44 billion by 2030, $20 million has been allocated “to support tourism experience development in priority areas with focus on First Nations, sustainability, eco/nature, accessibility and paleo”. Micenet believes the mechanism to distribute this will largely be through the Tourism Experience and Infrastructure Grants program.
The state government has also committed $700,000 to “support consideration” of a Lyric Theatre at HOTA, with this funding reliant on matched contributions from the federal government and the Gold Coast council.
“The future is bright for our tourism industry as Queensland continues to hold our nation-leading position as Australia’s most popular holiday destination for domestic visitors,” said Queensland tourism minister Stirling Hinchliffe.
“We are now focused on and determined to rebuild our international markets, not just getting them back to pre-pandemic numbers but growing them even stronger.
“Queensland had the best and quickest recovery from the pandemic than any other state, but we’ve always said we want to rebuild better and by locking in this increased funding for the next four years we’re backing TEQ to support the industry to do just that.”
