New mega casino resort project announced in Australia

"We’ve had a project on the cards here called City Port for about the last 10 years. This is now going to really make it happen,” said Ports North chairman Russell Beer. "The work that’s been done in market sounding around the world has flushed out significant interest in further tourism development in Cairns … and expectations are that within a few years we’re going to see some significant new pieced of infrastructure here.”

Treasurer Curtis Pitt, who was in Cairns to formally announce the proposed concept, said registrations of interest in the Global Tourism Hub concept open on Monday and will be a six week process.

" From that there’ll be a formal expressions of interest process, which will then drill down into the detail of the investment,” Pitt said. Based on the market sounding exercise that’s been undertaken, we should expect to see proposals in the hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars here for the region.”

The Global Tourism Hub covers more than 4ha of state-owned property on waterfront land, and while it includes a casino licence, Pitt said it was about "tourism infrastructure first”.

Source: GMB / Cairns Post