For new tour operators, home kitchens, mobile services and sole traders from Palm Cove to Gordonvale: a first website made from your own words and photos, with a .com.au registered in your name and an email address on it. We build the draft first, and you pay only once you're happy with it.
A new Cairns business usually sells to two kinds of customer: people who live here and will use you all year, and visitors who find you once, often on a phone, a few days before they arrive. Add a wet season that can close roads and cancel trips, and separate councils just up the coast and up the range, and a first site here has more to explain than most.
A reef trip, or a guided walk or tour in a national park, needs its permit issued before the first paying customer goes out. Until then the site can describe the trip, show the boat or vehicle and collect names for a launch list. Booking and payment go on once the permit is in hand.
Someone in Edmonton after a regular service and a visitor planning three days in Cairns want different things. Locals look for their suburb, a price and how to rebook; visitors want pick-up points, what's included, what to bring and how to cancel. Giving each a page of its own keeps both short.
The Bureau of Meteorology's cyclone season runs from November to April, and heavy rain can shut roads, markets and trips at short notice. A strip at the top of the home page, which we update when you email us, tells people you're closed today before they ring or turn up. Changes like that are covered by hosting.
Palm Cove, Trinity Beach, Redlynch and Gordonvale are in the Cairns council area; Port Douglas, Mossman, Mareeba and Atherton aren't. If you'll work up the coast or up the range, list those towns separately. People search by their own town's name, and your home-business rules come from whichever council your house is in.
If you'll bake, preserve or cook at home for markets or orders, council treats that as a home-based food business and wants the licence application at least 30 days before you trade. The site can show what you'll make and which market you'll be at, with online ordering added once the licence comes through.
Visitors often book weeks ahead, and friends and family buy experiences as gifts. A gift voucher request form, like the one on Cape Fishing Charters' site, lets someone in Melbourne arrange a trip for a parent who's coming to Cairns, and the details arrive in your inbox to confirm by hand.
The help that applies across Queensland, Business Launchpad for listing your licences and permits and Mentoring for Growth sessions once you're trading, is covered on our page for new Brisbane businesses. The Launchpad was extended to Cairns in July 2021 for people starting a residential construction or food and beverage hospitality business, and council's Doing business in Cairns page now sends every new business there, alongside ABN registration and a Welcome Pack of its own for people setting up. The same page counts more than 15,100 businesses in the Cairns region. Council renewed its part in the Queensland Small Business Commissioner's Small Business Friendly program in August 2025, continuing the charter it first signed with the Cairns Chamber of Commerce in 2021, and its business newsletter carries workshops, networking events and training as they come up.
Running the business from home is governed by CairnsPlan 2016. Council's home-based business page describes a home-based business as small-scale, run by the people who live in the house, with no more than one non-resident employee; a home office, a small-scale beauty or massage service and family day care are among its examples, while shops, gyms, cafés and commercial-scale food preparation are not. Someone who works remotely for an off-site employer isn't running one at all. Some home-based businesses are accepted development and need no development permit, but only if they comply with every requirement for accepted development. Part 5.5 of the scheme sets the level of assessment, and a business that doesn't meet those requirements, or that the scheme lists as code or impact assessable, needs a development application. Douglas Shire, which covers Port Douglas and Mossman, has been a separate council again since 1 January 2014, and Mareeba and the Tablelands have councils of their own, so a business based there follows their planning scheme instead.
Home kitchens get their own council guidance. Processing, making or selling food from a domestic kitchen makes you a home-based food business, and preparing food at home for sale at a market or fete needs a licence. Council will only consider an application where you comply with CairnsPlan 2016 and the food handling is low-risk, such as cakes and cupcakes without fresh cream. A food business licence doesn't approve running the business from your house, so written planning advice from council's Development Services Unit comes first and goes in with the licence application, which council asks for at least 30 days before you start trading. A sign out the front may need a permit as well. For a new cake or preserves business, that sets the order: approvals, then the order form.
Tourism has rules of its own. Business Queensland's licences and permits page for tourism businesses says a commercial activity permit is needed for guided tours, events, and filming and photography in national parks and other protected areas, and a marine parks permit for commercial tourism in Queensland marine parks. Activities in the Commonwealth Great Barrier Reef Marine Park are applied for through GBRMPA Permits Online, a joint permit can cover both parks, and the Queensland Government says the permit has to be issued before the activity begins. Operators selling packages to overseas wholesalers or travel agents may also need to register as an inbound tour operator.
Then there's the weather. The Bureau of Meteorology's tropical cyclone season runs from 1 November to 30 April, and the rain after Cyclone Jasper in December 2023 sent the Barron River to its highest flood on record. A business that opens in the dry season should plan its first wet before it arrives: how cancellations work, where closures will be posted, and what customers should do if they can't reach you. We're an Adelaide team and work with Cairns businesses by phone and email. None of our clients is in Cairns, so the sites below are from South Australia and Sydney.
Neither client is in Queensland, and we don't call them start-ups because we don't know how long each had been trading when it came to us. We've picked them for what a new Cairns tour or service business usually needs: one takes booking and gift voucher requests for a charter, the other links fixed-price packages to online booking.
Full-day fishing charters from Cape Jervis in South Australia, seven days a week. The one-page site takes booking requests and gift voucher requests, and adds a catch photo gallery, an FAQ, customer reviews, an embedded map and tap-to-call.
Visit the Cape Fishing Charters site (opens in a new tab) See it in our portfolio
A Sydney family dispute resolution practice. Its priced packages link straight to online booking, alongside six service pages, FAQs, a five-step intake form, a contact form and a newsletter signup.
Visit the Resolve Forward site (opens in a new tab) See it in our portfolio
“He was incredibly hands-on, always available to answer questions, and made every requested change promptly and without hesitation.”
★ 5.0 from 33 Google reviews (opens in a new tab)
See all 14 recent client sites in our portfolio.
$399
A local service on one page: what you do, the suburbs and towns you cover, your ABN and a contact form, with the .com.au and email set up together.
A good fit for a tour or experience
$899
A home page, a page for the tour or service with what's included, what to bring and pick-up points, and a page for bookings, cancellations and wet-season changes.
$1,499
For several tours, separate pages for locals and visitors, or work across more than one council area, plus a news section for seasonal updates and Google Analytics visitor stats.
We'd hold off on taking money. Business Queensland says guided tours in national parks need a commercial activity permit, and the Queensland Government says a marine parks permit must be issued before the activity starts. Until then, the site can describe the trip and collect expressions of interest, and booking goes on once the permit is issued.
Not always. Cairns Regional Council says some home-based businesses are accepted development under CairnsPlan 2016 and need no development permit, provided they meet every requirement; otherwise a development application is needed. Council's Development Services Unit takes planning questions at TownPlanner@cairns.qld.gov.au or on 1300 69 22 47. If you live in Port Douglas, Mareeba or the Tablelands, ask your own council instead.
Once council has licensed you. It treats food made in a domestic kitchen as a home-based food business, only considers low-risk food, and asks for the licence application at least 30 days before you trade, with written planning advice attached. The site can go up earlier with your products and market days, and the order form follows.
Yes. We build online booking and payment systems into sites, quoted for each job, or we link a booking tool you already use. If you'd rather confirm each trip by hand at first, a booking request form sends the date, group size and contact details straight to your inbox.
By phone and email. We talk through what you'll offer, you email your words and photos, and we send a draft link to check on your phone. You ask for as many changes as you like and pay once you approve it. We reply within 24 hours, wet season or not.
Tell us what you'll offer, whether it's for locals, visitors or both, and the towns you'll cover. We'll check the .com.au, quote the site and send a draft; you pay only after you've approved it.
We reply within 24 hours. Prefer email? info@webcraftstudio.com.au