Those were the words of Brian Holding, the owner of the Beach Almond restaurant in Palm Cove, just north of Cairns.

While Cairns remained relatively unscathed from Cyclone Ita, about 5400 homes and businesses in the far north remained without power by noon on Monday.

An inland sea also surrounds Ingham, about 110 kilometres northwest of Townsville, with floodwater splitting the town in half and blocking off surrounding roads.

There also appears to be severe damage to vegetation on Lizard Island's tourist resort, which was evacuated last week.

Mr Holding is one of the numerous members of the far north's tourism industry who are urging travellers not to cancel Easter holiday plans.

“As a business operator, as a tourism operator, it's a disaster because that thing [was] hanging around for a week, [with] bad press going to Sydney and Melbourne and Brisbane...cyclone, cyclone, cyclone,” he told 4BC Fairfax Radio News.

“It's gone, it's moved through. There's no danger.”

Mr Holding's sentiments were echoed by Tourism Minister Jann Stuckey, who said tourism operators had “dodged a bullet” with the Cyclone Ita.

“Easter is going to be wonderful...the welcome mat is out. Come to Queensland and have the Easter of your life,” she said.

Photos of the damage to Lizard Island, north of Cooktown, also emerged on Monday, with large palm trees snapped in half and debris strewn across the island.

The Australia Museum Lizard Island Research Station also faces the potential of being closed for an extended period, director Anne Hoggett said.

Speaking from Cairns, Dr Hoggett said damage to the station didn't appear to be very severe.

“The only damage we can see from the air is many, many trees down and the airstrip track is completely impassable. We've got a shade cloth roof over our aquarium system and that's apparently ripped to shreds, but that's nothing to fix,” she said.

“The main job is clearing the place, there's so many trees down and that's a big consideration.”

She said the research station's supplies of food and equipment were usually transported from the mainland by a charted aircraft and a barge organised by the island's tourism resort. With that facing a temporary closure, she expected the research station to be indirectly affected.

Meanwhile, north Queensland communities hit by Cyclone Ita will get access to emergency state and federal government assistance to help them rebuild.

“Local councils have done a great job preparing for Tropical Cyclone Ita but they still have a large task ahead of them cleaning up and restoring essential public assets and we want to help them with that,” Federal Justice Minister Michael Keenan said.

Officers from the Queensland Building and Construction Commission are also due to arrive in areas affected by the cyclone to provide rebuilding advice to home owners, Queensland Housing Minister Tim Mander said.

“Unscrupulous, unlicensed individuals often show up after a natural disaster to take advantage of vulnerable residents and perform dodgy, uninsured building work,” he said.