Queensland has the product. Brisbane 2032 is the platform. LA2028 is the launchpad.
I spent a good part of my Queensland Government career helping build this sector, establishing the Our Country Advisory Service and developing the 2020 Year of Indigenous Tourism and the services and grants behind it. The First Nations tourism product developed in Queensland over the past decade is solid. Brisbane 2032 is when the world arrives, and the businesses trading today need to be sustainable and trade-ready well before then.
Awareness hasn't caught up with what's on offer, and that gap is where the growth sits. Queensland is the only state in Australia with both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures. In Cape York, the Cape York Peninsula Lodge won gold in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Tourism Experiences category at the Australian Tourism Awards in 2024 and 2025. On the Sunshine Coast, a Torres Strait Islander-led sailing venture weaves Kabi Kabi stories and native bushfoods into a contemporary coastal experience. In the Bunya Mountains, a community has built a living cultural education site rooted in pan-tribal bunya nut gatherings. At Dreamworld on the Gold Coast, a community foundation has spent close to a decade creating employment and training pathways for young Indigenous Queenslanders.
Growing these businesses and bringing more young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people into the sector is the opportunity, and the timeline for doing it isn't 2032.
The LA2028 Olympics closing ceremony takes place in July 2028, just two years away. At that point, global attention shifts to the next host city, four years before the Brisbane 2032 Games open. Queensland's positioning work needs to be underway well before then.
Getting operators commercially ready, building the domestic and international story and connecting communities to distribution channels takes time. And 2028 is the starting line.
Jobs and regional development are the legacy that outlasts the Games
A tourism job in a remote or regional community does more than fill a roster. It gives a young person a reason to build a future close to home, in a local industry that's growing, instead of leaving the region to find work. That matters most in places where the alternatives are thin. A tourism career on country can be part of the answer to the social pressures faced by some regional and remote areas of Queensland. Every operator that grows strengthens the local economy around it as much as its own bottom line. That's a legacy for Brisbane 2032: a stronger regional workforce and community economies that outlast the Games themselves.
What Canada, New Zealand and a decade of funding show
Canada and New Zealand show what happens when this is integrated with industry.
In 2019, Keith Henry, President and CEO of the Indigenous Tourism Association of Canada, came to Queensland for the DestinationIQ forum. His message was direct: the sector doesn't grow if government and industry treat it as a social program. Canada folds its product, spanning wilderness lodges, dog-sledding, medicine walks and mountain biking, straight into the mainstream tourism offer.
New Zealand takes the same approach with Māori tourism. By 2023, Māori tourism contributed NZ$1.2 billion to the economy. Te Puia in Rotorua and Whale Watch Kaikōura are internationally recognised experiences that sit squarely inside New Zealand's national tourism brand.
Queensland has been building toward the same approach over the past decade. The 2020 Year of Indigenous Tourism put $10 million into the sector, most of it through the Growing Indigenous Tourism in Queensland Fund. What that produced on the ground: the Bonye Biar Bush University, Bundaberg's Milbi Café at Mon Repos, and the Saltwater Eco Tours on the Sunshine Coast. The $6 million Strategic Indigenous Tourism Projects program in 2024 funded business mentoring and trade readiness for operators, and First Nations Plans are now in place or under development for five tourism regions from Tropical North Queensland to the Sunshine Coast.
The market Queensland hasn't tapped yet
The numbers back it up. Nationally, First Nations tourism trips have doubled in a decade, reaching 3 million in 2023-24. Queensland runs second only to New South Wales on volume, yet fewer than 1% of our domestic overnight trips include a First Nations experience. The Northern Territory sits at 15%, built on decades of product development around Uluru and Kakadu. Internationally, Tourism Australia found 82% of travelers are interested in Indigenous experiences, and only 12% know what Australia offers. That's the market Queensland's operators can grow into, if they're ready to take it.
Australian travelers are the market closest to home and the easiest to reach. Expanding the businesses already trading to meet that demand builds the base the international story can stand on. Queensland's underlying position, the third largest visitor economy in Australia with 66,000 tourism businesses, makes that growth achievable.
Mainstream operators can build stronger partnerships with Traditional Owners and First Nations businesses, bringing native foods, storytelling and Indigenous art and design into experiences. New Zealand has scaled that model nationally. Māori design and cuisine appear across the broader hospitality and visitor sector under partnerships and license arrangements, with Māori communities setting the terms and sharing in the return. This can deepen the cultural richness of Queensland's tourism offer, while the flagship Indigenous-led product keeps scaling.
Conditions for operators to grow into that opportunity
Being commercially ready takes more than a market opportunity and the funding already committed. Turning that into a sustainable, growing business comes down to three things. Inalienable land titles can't be used as loan collateral, which closes off conventional lending from the start. Gaps in financial management, marketing and planning are common and slow things further. And when a venture is Traditional Owner-led, reaching agreement on governance and benefit-sharing takes the time community process requires, which isn't always the timeframe a funding round runs on. Advisory support built around the community's pace is what closes that gap.
Queensland's Our Country Advisory Service was built around that reality, providing sustained advisory support at the pace communities operate. Indigenous Business Australia's free workshops in business planning, marketing and finance address the same capability gap nationally. For remote Queensland operators, pairing that with on-country delivery gets the best results. Businesses that take up that advisory support are building Queensland's next wave of First Nations tourism experiences.
The next wave is building
Alongside the established names already picking up awards and building loyal audiences, a second wave of projects is moving from concept to opening. First Nations tourism businesses span guided tours, hospitality, art and cultural centres and events, from Cape York to the Gold Coast. That established base is what the next wave of investment builds on.
The progressive sealing of the Peninsula Development Road is opening Cape York to year-round access, supporting tourism development more broadly across the region. The Cape York Partnership's concept of a Great Dreaming Track maps a drive journey from Laura to Weipa through communities with cultural storytelling sites at every stop. Near Cairns, the Mandingalbay Yidinji Aboriginal Corporation is developing an eco-cultural tourism precinct at East Trinity, backed by more than $2 million in government grants, with a total vision of $46.8 million once complete. And in the very far north, Emver Partners is working with Torres Strait communities on community-led tourism development, and Gulf Savannah Development is helping develop more First Nations tourism experiences in the state's north-west.
Together with the experiences trading today, this pipeline will keep expanding Queensland's First Nations tourism offer.
Work is underway
The foundations are already in place. Queensland's inaugural First Nations Tourism Strategy launched in 2019, followed by the Queensland First Nations Tourism Plan 2026-2032. Two peak bodies, Queensland First Nations Tourism Council (QFNTC) and Independent Indigenous Tourism Operators of Queensland (IITOQ), now represent the sector.
I established the Young Tourism Leaders program back in 2016, and it is great to see QTIC take over delivery in 2026. Young people in each cohort, including First Nations tourism operators, share their journeys with other young people at schools, TAFEs and job fairs, building the pipeline of role models First Nations tourism needs more of.
Destination 2045 commits to growing First Nations tourism as part of Queensland's ecotourism offer and industry development priorities. Elevate 2042 names respecting, advancing and celebrating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as a foundation of the Games candidature, with commitments to economic participation, arts, culture and tourism co-designed with community. A Time to Shine backs that with investment in 18 Indigenous Art Centres over the next decade. And Queensland's original 2019 Olympic bid goes further still, naming Indigenous tourism as a Games legacy program.
The awareness gap won't close on its own. It's when operators are ready to take the booking, communities are resourced at their own pace, more young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people find a career in the sector, and the story reaches the travellers who don't yet know what's on offer.
LA2028 is when Queensland's First Nations tourism sector needs to be showing results, two years from now and well before Brisbane 2032's opening ceremony. Queensland isn't starting from zero. It's a question of whether the pace matches that timeline.