Airlie Beach
Located 20 kilometres northeast of Proserpine, 227 kilometres southeast of Townsville, and 113 kilometres north-northwest of Mackay in Gia Country within the Whitsunday Region, the resort town of Airlie Beach has become one of the logistical hubs for travellers bound for the Whitsunday Islands and the adjacent section of the Great Barrier Reef.
Initially, the district that includes Airlie Beach and its inland neighbour, Cannonvale, developed as an agricultural area after Thomas Abell took up land in 1904 for growing vegetables and tropical fruits.
A request from the Lands Department in December 1935 for a name for a new coastal subdivision prompted the Proserpine Shire Council to suggest Airlie — likely derived from the Scottish parish of Airlie, near Council Chairman Robert Shepherd's birthplace in Montrose — which remained the official name until the area from Cannonvale to Shute Harbour was aggregated into the larger town of Whitsunday in 1987. Airlie Beach remained the official name of the locality.
Farming remained the area's economic focus until the 1960s, when upgrades to the Bruce Highway between Brisbane and Cairns prompted business interests in Proserpine to turn their attention to the area's potential as a tourist destination.
An existing campaign to create a harbour to handle the Proserpine mill's sugar, combined with the loss of the Cannonvale jetty to cyclone damage, brought the sugar and nascent tourism industries together in a push to develop facilities at Shute Harbour, ten kilometres east of Airlie Beach. After sugar was transferred to bulk handling facilities at Mackay the port facilities focused entirely on tourist traffic.
While Shute Harbour remained the gateway to the tourist resorts on the nearby Whitsunday Islands, Airlie Beach developed as a destination in itself, with a marina, sailing club, restaurants, a nightclub strip and a range of accommodation options, including caravan parks, backpacker hostels, holiday flats and resort complexes. Airlie Beach lagoon, with three stinger-free swimming pools, opened in 2001.
