The unique experience of visitors to Quilpie, the region more than 1000 kilometres west of Brisbane has earned the local council gold in the ‘visitor information services’ category and a bronze in the ‘cultural tourism’ category for the Eromanga Natural History Museum.

The Queensland Tourism Industry Council Queensland Tourism Awards caps a major week for Quilpie, as its subsidised land package, offering 1000 square metre blocks for $25,000 and reported by InQueensland, continues to generate enormous interest across Australia and internationally as indicated by in-house data monitoring.

The Quilpie Information Centre’s category win gives it automatic entry into the Australian Tourism Awards, which will be announced in March 2023.

“We were thrilled to take out the award. We’re a small team and we were up against some really big centres across the State,” said Quilpie Shire Council tourism officer Jessica Tully.

“Quilpie is renowned as one of Queensland’s friendliest towns and at the Visitor Information Centre we like to embrace this and ensure all our visitors have the best possible experience in our beautiful region.”

Quilpie Shire experienced one of the busiest tourist seasons on-record after the Covid lockdowns and border closures – with tourist numbers up on previous years – and an estimated $581 million in overnight visitor spending recorded for the Outback Queensland tourism sector.

Quilpie Shire Council tourism and economic development manager Karen Grimm said the region’s resilience was “nothing short of phenomenal”.

“It was awesome to see so many Queenslanders, and interstate travellers as well once borders opened, embracing our backyard and exploring regions that may not have been on their radar pre-Covid,” she said.

“And even now that international travel has opened up, and the warmer months are here, we’re still experiencing higher than usual travel to our region.”