Tourism operators in tropical north Queensland expect it will take up to three years to rebuild overseas visitation to the region that shut down while the nation's borders were closed.

Domestic holiday visitors to Cairns and its surrounds rebounded by more than 52 per cent last year, and many operators last month  reported experiencing their busiest Easter school holiday period since 2019.

But Michael Nelson, managing director of a Cairns-based tourism marketing company, said the industry had to "rebuild the international market again from scratch".

"It is at zero," he said.

"We need to bring it back and there is a long road ahead of us for us to be able to do that."

Mr Nelson expected the overseas market recovery would take "two to three years … at the least", led by visitors from the UK, continental Europe, the US and Japan.

Chinese visitation is expected to take much longer to resume.

"It's going to be a progressive thing with so many different factors at play: world events, aviation capacity, and of course our ability to meet that visitor expectation by making sure we've got enough staff in our industry as well," he said.

Call for help

At a meeting in Cairns yesterday, ahead of the federal election, industry figures called on the major parties' candidates for the seat of Leichhardt to advocate for more funding to help the industry promote itself internationally

Ben Woodward from the CaPTA Group, which employs more than 200 people at its various attractions and tour operators around Cairns, said the parties should consider the industry's "exceptional circumstances".

The federal government allocates money to businesses through the Export Market Development Grants program but many tourism operators in far north Queensland "exhausted" their funding many years ago.

"We're in a very unique situation in tourism now where we need to reboot that," Mr Woodward said.

During a campaign visit to Cairns in March, Prime Minister Scott Morrison pledged $60 million to aid international tourism recovery to the region. 

Mr Morrison announced that $45 million would go to Tourism Australia and another $15 million to the locally based Tourism Tropical North Queensland.

At the time, Mr Morrison said there was no part of Australia that was more dependent on international tourism than tropical north Queensland.

Candidates hear concerns

Incumbent LNP member Warren Entsch said extending access to the grants would make sense after the government's funding announcement. 

"That money is not going to be worth anything unless those that are best at bringing those markets back into Cairns are out there doing it," he said.

Labor candidate Elida Faith hinted to the tourism figures that her side of politics would also make an announcement before the end of the campaign.

The industry has also asked for government support in luring working holiday makers back to Australia, which they say could be done through visa fee waivers, particularly as operators grapple with staff shortages.

"We need to make sure that we train our own, as well as looking at visas for overseas workers. I think it [goes] hand-in-hand," Ms Faith said.