In partnership with Reforestation, the trees help restore the habitat of local tree-kangaroos. In the Atherton Tablelands, the habitat has been 96 per cent logged. Around 40 tourism industry representatives planted 3,150 trees at a recent tree planting day.
“They’re the cutest little things, the tree-kangaroos,” says Bennett.
“We have two species of tree-kangaroos in tropical north Queensland – the Lumholtz, which is up in the Atherton Tablelands, and Bennett’s tree-kangaroo is in the coastal area.”
And while she agrees this type of corporate social responsibility activity gives everyone a warm feeling, micenet wondered whether clients were really locked into the concept and was it winning the region any business?
“Until recently, I would have said ‘no’,” says Bennett.
“You need to have your position and to be demonstrating what activities you’re doing and how you’re looking to measure and offset your footprint, but at the same time, it wasn’t necessarily getting business across the line,” she says.
However, in a recent proposal for which a number of destinations were being considered “the decision came down to the sustainability credentials of the destination, which got us across the line”.
Bennett says there has been a turnaround “in the past four or five months” which is also in line with an upswing in business for the region that augurs well for 2025 “and even better for 2026” she says.
And it is not just the domestic market that has improved – the international market is coming back too.
“The US: we are seeing more interest for incentive groups, not so much the bigger conferencing groups. New Zealand, again, we’ve been able to secure a number of groups there but we are seeing interest from a number of different global brands as well,” she says, while warning “it’s certainly not where it used to be, but we’re seeing that on the leisure side as well, that it has been slower than we’d all hoped, post-pandemic, to come back”.
Much of the improvement is due to growth in aviation that will help long term. Bennett cites AirAsia as a new addition, “which has surprised us…bringing through more traffic beyond Malaysia…from European countries and the UK”.
She is also excited for the start of services between Cairns and Fiji in April with Fiji Airways.
“Now, that for us is a really interesting link, certainly from Fiji itself by way of a number of the different workers’ agreements for seasonal workers. But for us, it’s the link through to North America.”
Another local issue that is improving in Cairns, says Bennett, is staff accommodation. That has not only been helped by the return of Airbnb properties to the rental market, but by new developments.
She said the latest to break ground was a $60 million resort comprising 185 units of one, two and three bedroom apartments for short and long term stays in the Cairns airport precinct.
