Disaster recovery

We provide a range of support for the tourism industry to prepare and recover from natural disasters. Supporting initiatives that build disaster resilience means local communities, businesses and individuals can be better prepared.

We lead the Queensland tourism industry’s disaster response and oversee the implementation of recovery assistance programs jointly funded by the Australian Government and Queensland Government.

Tourism Recovery and Resilience Program

This $7 million* Tourism Recovery and Resilience package will support areas of the state that rely heavily on tourism to recover from the devastating effects of the 2022 extraordinary disasters, to plan for recovery after future disaster events and be more resilient.

The package aims to boost resilience, sustainability and build resilient infrastructure in the impacted regions and help tourism businesses stand stronger in the face of future disasters. This will ensure local communities, businesses and individuals can be better prepared.

The Tourism Recovery and Resilience Fund is being delivered over 2 years, through 4 different programs:

• Building Resilient Tourism Infrastructure
• Regional Tourism Product, Experience and Infrastructure Platform
• Tourism Business Resilience Program
• Solving Disaster Resilience Challenges with Open Innovation.

The package includes:

• Building Resilient Tourism Infrastructure: Grant program for impacted tourism businesses to assist with building resilience and aiding response to flooding and natural disasters through innovative solutions and bespoke engineering solutions.
• Regional Tourism Product, Experience and Infrastructure Platform: To diversify the tourism offering in areas impacted by the flooding events by mapping existing tourism products, experiences and infrastructure against natural disaster metrics and identifying gaps for development, provided in an accessible ‘one stop’ tool accessible to key governing stakeholders
• Tourism Business Resilience Program: To help tourism businesses respond to the unique challenges and help them plan for, and recover from, natural disasters.
• Solving Disaster Resilience Challenges with Open Innovation: To support communities identify, test and deploy innovative solutions for challenges impacting the resilience and preparedness of the local tourism industry and operators in the three most impacted regions of the state from 2022 severe weather event.

Community Recovery Ready Reserve

Our department supports the Community Recovery Ready Reserve.

The Community Recovery Ready Reserve is a State-wide coordinated effort led by the Department of Communities, Disability Services and Seniors (DCDSS).

This program assists in the physical, financial, social and emotional recovery of individuals and communities from the effects of a critical incident.

Our department supports the Community Recovery Ready Reserve pool – a pool of trained staff from across Government that help sustain operations of the community recovery teams across the State on a continuous basis, for a prolonged period after a disaster event.

The Community Recovery Ready Reserve pool ensures Queensland communities are supported and have the assistance needed to recover from a disaster in an effective and timely manner.

^{*These packages are jointly funded by the Australian Government and Queensland Government under the Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements.}