Published on : Wednesday, March 11, 2015
“The Territory recorded the highest growth in visitor numbers of all jurisdictions in 2014 which is fantastic news for the Territory tourism industry which suffered a decade of decline under Labor,” Chief Minister Adam Giles said.
“A total of 1.076 million came to the Territory in the year to December 2014. That’s up 20 per cent on the previous year and outstrips all other jurisdictions in terms of growth in the latest National Visitor Survey.
“There’s still a long way to go but these figures are extremely encouraging and show that our ‘Do the NT’ campaign is delivering domestic visitor results for Territory tourism operators.”
Mr Giles outlined the figures during a visit to the Australian Aviation Heritage Centre in Winnellie which is a volunteer-run tourism operation that’s experienced a recent jump in visitors.
“Our visitor numbers coming through the door have picked up by about 5 per cent over the past year but we believe that will improve even further,” Centre Manager, Angie Clucas said.
“We’ve now combined with the Tour Tub and the Darwin Military Museum to do half day war experience tours – so there’s a lot of co-operation. I think it can only improve now with the dollar down, and the price of fuel down – and the fact that our main base is the grey nomad – this should really help us.”
The business (up 32%), visiting friends and relatives (up 34%) and holiday (up 6.2%) markets have all increased substantially over the year.
“Importantly these extra visitors are staying longer and spending more while they’re here which is music to our ears and drives more cash into the pockets of operators,” Mr Giles said.
Spending and nights:
Total domestic expenditure – up 22 per cent to $1.4 billion
Total visitor nights – up 36 per cent to 6.6 million
Holiday visitor expenditure – up 12 per cent to $553 million
Holiday visitor nights – up 5.7 per cent to 2.3 million
“All regions showed positive increases in domestic visitation which is in line with the government’s policy of growing tourism activity throughout the Territory,” Mr Giles said.
Top End
Total visitors up 25 per cent to 808,000
Holiday visitors up 4 per cent to 290,000
Greater Darwin
Total visitors up 26 per cent to 627,000
Holiday visitors up 1 per cent to 225,000
Central Australia
Total visitors up 4.6 per cent to 317,000
Holiday visitors up 2.7 per cent to 161,000
Alice Springs and MacDonnell
Total visitors up 8.8 per cent to 229,000
Holiday visitors up 2.3 per cent to 106,000
Tourism NT staff will be going on the road later this month to share their marketing plans for next year with NT tourism operators.
“This roadshow is an important opportunity to get feedback from the industry. We want to work in closer partnership with operators to build our tourism product and continue the positive trend we’ve seen over the past year,” Mr Giles said.
“Improving visitation is another step along the road to developing Northern Australia and to achieving the vision of a $2.2 billion visitor economy by 2020.”
Tags: Northern Territory
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