Up to 80,000 thousand passengers are expected to travel through Gold Coast Airport from today and over the long weekend, providing local tourism operators with a much-needed boost following a bumpy start to the summer season.

Queensland Airports Limited Chief Commercial Officer Adam Rowe said the Friday public holiday would provide further incentive for people to make travel plans, topping off what had already been a strong start to the year for the airport.

“We’ve been seeing around 20,000 passengers a day travel through Gold Coast Airport throughout January,” he said.

“While this is always a busy time of year – the passenger numbers we’re seeing are far more consistent than previous years due to greater competition in the market with the 11 new routes we’ve launched with Bonza over the past few months and excellent numbers on our key Sydney, Melbourne and New Zealand markets,” Mr Rowe said.

Experience Gold Coast’s Executive Director for Tourism Rachel Hancock said the long weekend is expected to generate $49 million in economic activity.

“Our tourism operators are reporting solid occupancy heading through 80 per cent and in many cases beyond 90 per cent this long weekend,” she said.

“We anticipate about $49 million will be injected into Gold Coast’s visitor economy across three days which is a much-needed boost on the back of the peak Christmas-New Year window being impacted.

“Coming up, we've got the AACTA Festival and Awards, Gold Coast Open and P!NK’s Summer Carnival plus the Lunar New Year which presents huge potential from the Chinese market.”

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