Despite the chaos at the Queensland-New South Wales border, the Gold Coast's peak tourism body has pushed ahead with the final part of a campaign encouraging visitors to "come and play".
A 60-second video has been launched to coincide with the reopening of two more theme parks: Movie World and Wet'n'Wild, at Oxenford, today.
However, visitors driving to the theme parks today from interstate are expected to wait for hours at checkpoints, with police now starting to scrutinise vehicles with New South Wales registration plates.
It comes after a growing cluster of coronavirus cases in New South Wales and Victoria.
Destination Gold Coast CEO, Annaliese Battista, said the further reopening of theme parks was another milestone for the revival of the city's tourism sector.
"Gold Coast is undisputedly Australia's favourite playground," she said.
"We've got the rollercoasters and all of the theme park assets all over our marketing campaigns … that's what drives people to the coast, and we can't wait to welcome them back."
Theme park bosses happy
Village Roadshow CEO Clark Kirby was at Movie World to welcome guests back to the park after a long four months of shutdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
"It's just an incredible feeling to see people and our staff come in and coming back," he said.
Cleaners would provide extra sanitation, park visitors were limited to 50 per cent of normal capacity, and guests would have to download an app to book tickets and rides to cut down on queues.
"We've done an enormous amount of work," Mr Kirby said.
"We're really impressed with the way that the public has actually been maintaining that social distancing and obviously our wonderful team members are working very hard to make sure those procedures are being followed."
Crowds eager despite situation
Visitors keen to spend their day at Movie World lined up early to enjoy the sights and sounds of the theme park.
Cameron Ord and his family from Canberra took the opportunity to visit while they were in the state.
"It seems they've got all the right precautions in place," he said.
"We weren't too worried about it being in Queensland… I think if this was in Victoria, it would be a different conversation."
Ms Battista said Destination Gold Coast was monitoring the situation down south, where the spread of the virus was worsening.
"The safe reopening of borders is critical for the Gold Coast tourism sector," she said.
"Nothing would be worse to undermining the Gold Coast reputation than any kind of spread to the coast … so we absolutely support the measures that have been taken so far."
She confirmed the campaign drive had been avoiding the Victorian market to discourage travel from there.
"We have a heavy emphasis on the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, and South Australia because we know they're safe places to market to."
