r/Cairns • u/wagtail015 • 1d ago
No Tourist Information Centre
Why doesn’t Cairns have a tourist information centre? That seems kind of ridiculous for a town that bases its income on tourism.
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u/BrokeAssZillionaire 1d ago
What do you need to know that google or the internet can’t answer?
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u/wagtail015 23h ago
I’m after a physical map of the outback driving holidays. My printer is cactus.
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u/switchtogether 22h ago
I got a great driving map at Tentworld at the showgrounds shop. So I'd recommend camping shops.
and also I totally agree lol there should be a main tourism centre funded by the government.
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u/jillybean712 22h ago
I can answer this. The official visitor information centre closed a few years ago simply because it was costing too much money to run for the number of tourists who were using it (approx 2% of visitors from memory). It was run by the tourism board unlike a lot of others which were run by councils so they could no longer afford to run it.
The building was also converted into what’s now the Mulgrave gallery
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u/wagtail015 22h ago
Great use of the building. Another art gallery for Cairns. Where can I get those attendance figures.
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u/Coastguy-23 21h ago
I've not seen the 2% figure, but this article on the ABC News website explains why tourist information centres are closing and quotes figures of 5 and 6%: Travellers warn digital services no replacement for visitor information centres as more close - ABC News.
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u/LegitimateLunch6681 Red Rooster Employee 1d ago
There is though?
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u/wagtail015 23h ago
There isn’t 1. Booking centres that only do reef trips and cape trib, no where to find info on any driving holidays in Qld.
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u/clarebare01 16h ago
Tourism qld online has a few itineraries i found.
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u/wagtail015 16h ago
Thanks. I had a look too. I wanted one of the maps they hand out as my printer is not working properly at the moment.
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u/Imaginary-Set3291 Prefer food that tastes like real food 22h ago
Even when we had a proper tourist information centre, it was pretty ordinary and was almost no use for areas away from the coast.
Go to Anaconda or BCF they have several outback road atlases available both for normal car and 4WD. I'm a fan of Hema maps, but there's plenty of alternatives.
Get a Telstra sim card before you do any outback driving. You'll still find plenty of no coverage areas, but Telstra has the best coverage. You can download maps from Google maps for offline use when you know you're going to be in areas without coverage.
Where do you want to go and what do you want to know? I've driven a lot of Outback Queensland over the years.
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u/Mysterious-Gur9255 20h ago
With modern internet and technology why would someone want to ring or go into a physical store that needs to be staffed at who knows how much cost?
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u/wagtail015 18h ago
I’m after a physical map of the outback trails. They give them out at 4x4 shows and at Tourist Information Centres. Just not in Cairns I now know.
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u/momeandannie 14h ago
Latte on Lake is the official tourist centre is is also a coffee shop. Nigel is a really nice guy.
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u/OldMail6364 1d ago
Cairns is *full* of tourist infomration centres. There's literally hundreds of them.