The Australian Government’s National Visitor Survey was released today, outlining the positive performance of domestic tourism for both the June quarter and the year ending June 2010.
Commenting on the figures, Minister for Tourism, Martin Ferguson AM MP noted the positive growth in the June quarter for both trips and visitor nights and the continued increase in the lucrative business travel market.
“Domestic tourism sustains most of Australia’s tourism businesses - it accounts for 75 per cent of tourism consumption so I am encouraged by the latest figures,” Minister Ferguson said.
“The Australian Government has continued its support for domestic tourism through Tourism Australia’s No Leave No Life campaign.
“We continue to encourage Australian businesses to reduce the 118 million days of accumulated annual leave on their books by promoting the concept of an Australian holiday to their staff.
“The $150 million global marketing campaign There’s Nothing Like Australia has been very successful in highlighting the many treasured destinations throughout Australia for a short break or a long road trip.
“This campaign was given a further boost with the announcement of Oprah Winfrey’s historic trip to Australia in December which will be televised to 145 countries.
“Visitor numbers for this year from the US were up eight per cent and we expect this increase to go through the roof off the back of the global exposure Australia will receive from Oprah’s show.”
For the June quarter 2010 overnight trips rose three per cent and visitor nights were up four per cent. Visitor expenditure remained steady and day trip visitors increased by nine per cent. Overnight business trips were up three per cent and visitor nights seven per cent. There is also some evidence of substitution between overnight and same day business travel with business day trips increasing 20 per cent.
The recovery in overnight and same day business travel for the June quarter coincides with strong company profit results (up 27.5 percent in the June quarter 2010 on the June quarter 2009).
South Australia (up six per cent), Queensland (up five per cent), Victoria (up two per cent) and New South Wales (up four per cent) and the ACT (up 37 per cent) all experienced a strong June quarter in terms of overnight trips.
For the twelve months to June overnight trips and visitor nights remained steady while domestic overnight expenditure increased two per cent to $42.8 billion over the same period.
The complete results from the National Visitor Survey can be downloaded from www.ret.gov.au/tra.