Thursday 7 July 2011

It's not the year of the Tiger

As Cairns continues its economic slump, the grounding of budget airline Tiger, will affect many, least of all, our spending backpacker market.

We have always had a stream of arrivals into Cairns on the 1:20am Tiger service from Melbourne, however the three-week grounding after one of their planes flew too low into Melbourne Airport, will have a big impact on Cairns. The pilot used a navigational database with a wrong descent altitude, the Australian Transport Safety Bureau said today.

Cairns is still hurting, as we still record one of the highest and most constant unemployment figures in the country, even though some economic commentators try to forecast brighter things for the local economy, we are yet to see some real signs.

On top of this, the news that the State Government will now not relocate some of their administration offices or departments to Cairns, a move that would have boosted the local depressed environment - a failed election lure - we are going to have a long hard road ahead.

And we hardly need stuff-ups like the lapse of safety that a Reef operator experienced last week, something that is a timely wake-up call for the industry, but would have no doubt had an impact on visitors and their choice of leisure activity whilst visiting our region.

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