Tourism Tropical North Queensland has partnered with one of the world’s leading youth travel platforms, Global Work & Travel, to launch its ‘First Class To Paradise’ campaign.
A severe shortage of hospitality & tourism workers in one of Australia’s most popular holiday destinations has spawned a major international campaign to attract young travellers into the tropical far north of the country.
Tourism Tropical North Queensland has partnered with one of the world’s leading youth travel platforms, Global Work & Travel, to launch its ‘First Class To Paradise’ campaign which is aimed at encouraging working holiday makers from the UK and EU to travel to Australia and be matched with a partner employer in the Cairns and surrounding region.
The social media campaign will run extensively for a month and it offers a travel competition prize for one traveller of a First Class flight from London to Australia, worth over £8,000.
The campaign encourages eligible travellers aged 18 to 30 to sign up for a Working Holiday trip through Global Work & Travel, which guarantees to match travellers with open jobs before arrival into Australia, and go into a draw to win a First Class flight with Singapore Airlines before heading to work in the tropical north for four to six months or longer.
“This is travelling in style. The winner will travel to Australia and enjoy a once-in-a-lifetime flight experience, right after Covid and the chaos it likely caused them back home, and we’ll then help them on their way to working and travelling in one of the most beautiful locations in Australia, let alone the world,” said Global Work & Travel CEO and Co-founder, Jürgen Himmelmann.
“It’s a great way to let the UK and European travellers realise that they have the opportunity to work and play in a part of the world where they can easily access the Great Barrier Reef, the Daintree and an endless choice of life changing experiences,” he said.
It’s estimated there are thousands of jobs that need to be filled in Tropical North Queensland with tourism and hospitality operators reporting they can’t find enough employees to help them service a surge in demand and visitation from travellers to the region. Farm operators, including fruit growers, are also reporting chronic labour shortages.
Tourism Tropical North Queensland Chief Executive Officer Mark Olsen said working holiday makers had been an integral part of the regional community before the pandemic.
“Cairns was known as the place where young people could work in paradise whether it was on a dive boat exploring the Great Barrier Reef or in an eco-lodge in the heart of the world’s oldest rainforest,” he said.
“In between shifts they would be sunning themselves by the Esplanade Lagoon in Cairns, catching up with friends from around the world at a nightclub or heading out for a day of adventure rafting or skydiving.
“We look forward to welcoming young travellers to Tropical North Queensland where they can become an important part of an exciting industry showcasing two World Heritage areas.”
The First Class to Paradise campaign shows striking imagery of the Singapore Airlines Suites, which features an individual cabin with its own sliding door and allows for a standalone bed, which is completely separate from the seat. It also shows young travellers enjoying the natural beauty of the region at waterfalls and on the Great Barrier Reef.
Young travellers are encouraged to enter the competition by registering with TTNQ and then booking and paying for a working holiday trip through Global Work & Travel. Global Work & Travel provides a service, currently at no charge, to Australian employers looking for workers by matching them with working holiday makers from around the world.
They ensure that jobseekers have all relevant visas, police checks, professional CVs and references before setting up the interview between the two parties, and then arranging all the travel components and providing on-going, Australian-based support.
The company reports that since Australia’s international borders reopened in February after two years because of the pandemic, demand for working holiday travel has increased dramatically. It says that bookings for 2022 have already surpassed pre-COVID levels and have more than doubled from the same period in 2021.
“The Tropical North Queensland region is one of the most popular for our travellers and for good reason. This campaign will drive home the multitude of lifestyle benefits you can enjoy in this part of the world,” Mr Himmelmann said.
“We’re committed to doing all we can to help our partner employers with their staffing issues and we feel privileged to be working with Tourism Tropical North Queensland on this important initiative,” he said.
“We share the same goal in that we want to do all we can to help businesses who were hit hard by COVID get back on their feet and we’re all well aware that being able to provide adequate staffing levels is key to that.”
For the year ending 2021, the number of domestic overnight travellers to Tropical North Queensland rose 36.9 percent to 1.982 million compared to 2020 which was more heavily impacted by pandemic lockdowns. This represented a total spend of $2.7 billion which was a rise of 89 percent. There were virtually no international travellers in those statistics.
In 2022, many tourism and hospitality businesses reported experiencing their busiest Easter school holiday period since 2019 with low staffing levels causing a major problem in servicing the rebound in visitors.
The Australia-based Global Work & Travel has specialised in, and developed an extensive range of, work and travel opportunities since it was founded in 2008, backed by the mantra of “Be more than a tourist”. The company helps match working holiday makers into jobs in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, USA, the UK and Ireland, among other destinations and travel styles.
Global Work & Travel is based in Australia with offices in the Gold Coast, Melbourne, London and Vancouver.
The company launched a consumer facing travel platform, DealsAway.com, as its sister site in February 2021 at the height of the global pandemic to help industry partners recover from the tourism downturn by delivering immersive, meaningful packaged holidays online at market leading prices.
Theodore is the Co-Founder and Managing Editor of TravelDailyNews Media Network; his responsibilities include business development and planning for TravelDailyNews long-term opportunities.
