HOSTING THE COMMONWEALTH GAMES GOLD COAST 2018
HOSTING THE COMMONWEALTH GAMES GOLD COAST 2018: THE QUEENSLAND GOVERNMENT MINISTER’S VIEW
Hon. Kate Jones, MP is the Minister
for Innovation, Tourism Industry Development and the Commonwealth Games in the Queensland Government. Kate oversaw the successful delivery of the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games. She has previously served as Minister for Education and for Environment and Natural Resources in previous Queensland Governments. She was elected to the Queensland Parliament in 2015, having previously served between 2006 and 2012.
The Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games was the single most significant event Queensland has ever hosted. I’m proud to say I was a Member of Parliament and a representative in Cabinet at the time we chose to bid for the Games and was the Minister responsible for delivering the state’s largest sporting event. Across eleven days of sport, we witnessed some fantastic sporting action as Australia dominated the medal tally to claim 80 gold to England’s 45. We saw the Australian women beat the world record in the 4x100m swimming, we witnessed Brisbane young gun Ariarne Titmus dominate the women’s freestyle and had the privilege of watching five countries win their first Commonwealth Games medals. But the great thing about sport is that it brings us together when times are tough. We saw Jamaican sprinter Yohan Blake stumble in the 100m finals to take bronze behind South Africa’s Akani Simbine and Henricho Bruintjies, and we witnessed a heart-warming outpour of support for Scottish runner Callum Hawkins who collapsed during the men’s marathon. These are the moments sports fans will remember most. But the challenge for the government, indeed for all governments faced with the quandary of whether to host a major event like the Games, was ensuring our investment paid off for the people of Queensland. We invested around $1.5 billion to deliver the Commonwealth
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Games. As a direct result of the Games we also leveraged funding to upgrade roads, duplicate train lines and build a new light rail system on the Gold Coast. The construction and upgrades to 11 venues across the state has given Queensland and the Gold Coast everything we need to compete for more major events. We are already in the market, meeting with sports administrators about new opportunities for the Coast. Days after the Games ended, I attended SportAccord in Thailand – the world’s largest sporting events conference – to speak about the success of the Games and what this means for Queensland moving forward. In addition to the infrastructure we put in place, we supported more than 30,000 jobs and trained 15,000 volunteers to participate during the event. That’s 45,000 people trained to host major events - an entire industry kick-started by the Commonwealth Games. During the Games, around 1.1 million people spent $870 million here in Queensland. We sold more than 1.2 million tickets – that’s double the population of the Gold Coast. While many sports fans were visiting Queensland, even more were watching from home - around 1.5 billion people across the globe tuned in to the 2018 Commonwealth Games. In Australia, close to 16 million viewers tuned in to the Games as Channel 7 dominated the ratings. The GC2018 website attracted
around 113 million page-views, of which 68 million were unique. Our social media channels had around 733,600 followers and more than 108.3 million impressions. Meanwhile, Channel 7’s live broadcast app as well as the Official GC2018 app were the two most downloaded applications in early April. The Official GC2018 app was downloaded more than 416,000 times. Everyone knows Queensland is beautiful one day and perfect the next. We are leveraging the unrivalled exposure we received as a result of the Games to bring more visitors to our state. This is working. Our projections show that over the next nine years, around half a million extra visitors will touch down in Queensland thanks to the Commonwealth Games. On top of our strategy to use the Games to strengthen our tourism sector, trade has also been a focus for the Queensland Government. Through our Trade 2018 program we held more than 30 events throughout Queensland and brought some of the world’s leading investors and business identities to our state to mentor and work with locals. More than 2,500 people participated in Commonwealth Games trade and investment events. We attracted 38 international delegations from 26 countries to the events and activities during the Games as a result of a year-long international engagement campaign off the back of the Queen’s Baton Relay. We had delegates join us from countries including England, India,