MACKAY Tourism in Australia has good news. For the three years leading up to the 2018/19 financial year, Mackay Tourism reported a surplus. Now, the organisation has more than $128,000 in the bank even after reporting a $29,118 loss this financial year.

With a few major moves behind the scenes, including the relocation of the Tourism Information Centre to Sarina, the organization was prompted to prepare for the worst – which never came.

Chief executive officer Tas Webber said last year, Mackay Tourism took on a lot of risks, so he asked for additional funding from the previous two years to be brought forward in case there were any issues.

“Luckily for us, we didn’t have any issues,” he said. “That is the reason it looks like we’re running

The end-of-year balance has increased nearly sevenfold on the previous year and there is room to invest the money back into the region’s tourism industry.

The biggest money earner for Mackay Tourism was ‘operating funding’, which brought in more than $900,000. The group also forked out $108,174 on marketing but made about $60,000 more in marketing revenue.

The biggest expense for the organization was wages and superannuation, costing $641,590. Coupled with operational costs, Mackay Tourism spent more than a million dollars.

While Mackay Tourism’s bank account was flush on June 30, it only had $358,751 in cash or cash equivalents, significantly down from the nearly $800,000 it had in 2018.

In a year Mackay Tourism had: