The program was developed by Tourism and Events Queensland to review and rank tourism operators on a points system to better define the Best of Queensland Experiences.

Mount Isa Underground Hospital and Museum was one of 233 new tourism businesses joining the elite Best of Queensland Experience in this latest round.

Volunteer coordinator Erica Shaw said the announcement came as a complete surprise, with the tourism destination totalling 95 of 100 points.

"The program is weighed differently across a number of different factors, like positive reviews from travellers are weighted with 60 points," Ms Shaw said.

"To be eligible for the Best of Queensland Experiences list businesses need to be on the Australian Tourism Data Warehouse listing and meet customer focused criteria including:

"To be able to get onto the Best of Queensland system you have to achieve 85 points or more."

Mount Isa's Underground Hospital and Museum was recognised alongside operators like Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane, Dreamworld on the Gold Coast and Whalesong Cruises at Hervey Bay.

After just celebrating the 80^th anniversary, Ms Shaw said it was an honour to be ranked alongside some large tourism operators.

"Our goal was to achieve this accreditation next year, to be included in the 2023 list. It came as a complete surprise to us that we were able to do it this year and we are thrilled that we have been able to achieve that," she said.

"This is the first time that the Underground Hospital has been registered for Best of Queensland Experience. The committee would like to recognise the contribution of all the volunteers who are the forward-facing people within the business, who make sure that everyone who comes here has the best experience possible.

"This (recognition) is a way for tourism operators to benchmark themselves against other similar businesses, to make sure we are achieving and have the best practices in place."

Ms Shaw said the Underground Hospital and Museum would continue to build on this success.

"This recognition is also something that we can put towards award submissions and funding submissions to better our chances in those areas," she said.

"We will build on this success by participating in Tourism Transformational Experiences mentoring programs run through Tourism Events Queensland.

"We applied for that earlier this year and was selected to participate in that mentoring program. We've had two meetings already and we will work with them to continue to grow the experience people can have when they come through the Underground Hospital."

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