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Queensland tourism businesses thrive on our State's natural beauty, however with that, comes exposure and the risk of impacts from severe weather. Preparation ahead of time matters and can make a big difference to how quickly you get back to welcoming visitors to your corner of the world.
Know your risk
Every tourism business faces its own mix of hazards. Cyclones, floods and bushfires are tied to your location. Heatwaves can affect any business, anywhere.
Start by finding out which hazards are most likely where you operate, when they could happen and how they could affect your business and your visitors. It doesn’t matter if you’ve run your business here for decades or you’re new to the region.
Contact your local council to ask if your premises are at risk of flood, bushfire, cyclone or storm tide. If you’re near the coast, ask for a coastal hazard area map.
Share what you find with your team so everyone understands the risks and can plan together.
Sign up for BoM and local council alerts, and save them on your phone, tablet and computer.
Make a plan
Did you know an emergency plan is a legal requirement for all Queensland businesses? Not only that, stress makes it much harder to think clearly in the middle of an emergency, so make your plan before disaster hits.
A business continuity plan helps you:
identify and prevent risks where you can
prepare for the risks you can’t control
respond and recover quickly if something happens
The goal is simply to get back to trading as soon as possible. Your plan might cover staff contacts and rostering, visitor safety, evacuation procedures, power outages, equipment storage, cash on hand, insurance, backups of important documents, and how you’ll communicate with staff and guests.
Business Queensland has developed some resources to help tourism businesses prepare for, respond to, and recover from a crisis or emergency event. Checklists, information and resources to help tourism businesses be better prepared for risks can be accessed at the link below.
Pack a kit
If you need to evacuate, a business emergency kit can keep you operating from another location. If you’re isolated without power or phone coverage, it can keep you and your team going for a week or so.
Keep your kit somewhere you can grab it quickly.
Record what’s in it in your emergency plan.
Make someone responsible for keeping it up to date.
Support your team
Your staff are the backbone of your business. When they’re prepared at home, they recover faster and can focus on their roles, even when things get tough.
Encourage your team to build their own household emergency plan at plan.getready.qld.gov.au. It takes just a few minutes, uses local risk data, and is stored securely on their device. They can download it as a PDF and share it with family.
Many tourism operators run small businesses where home and work are closely linked. If that’s you, make sure you’ve covered both your household plan and your business plan.
Look after your visitors
Visitors may not know Queensland’s weather the way locals do. Our wet season falls in summer, and bushfire risk peaks in the cooler, drier months. That’s the reverse of southern states, so build it into how you welcome and brief guests.
Share our visitor safety tips with anyone who visits your business, so they know what to do if severe weather hits.
Support during and after a disaster
You’re not on your own. The Queensland Government supports small businesses before, during and after a disaster, including financial assistance and recovery guidance.
Natural disaster support for your business through Business Queensland
Tourism Recovery Officers, who offer disaster support tailored to tourism operators, through Business Queensland.
