Published on : Monday, September 19, 2016
The hard work is paying off for our tourism industry, which is putting an end to the traditional slower months and reaching striking distance of the magic million interstate visitor milestone.
The latest Tasmanian Visitors Survey reflecting the year to June has shown that more visitors are coming to our state, they’re staying longer and spending more.
This is great news for our economy, Tasmanian businesses and local jobs.
Our largest target market, Australian travellers, is on the cusp of a major milestone, nearly reaching a million interstate visitors, growing to 997,800.
This is particularly significant, given the industry traditionally tends to slow in our cooler months, but we are now clearly rewriting attitudes about spending time in Tasmania outside of summer.
Visitors from interstate stayed on average eight nights, which is up by four per cent, they spent $1.697 billion, an increase of seven per cent.
This growth is on the back of areas targeted by our Go Behind the Scenery campaigns, including in New South Wales, which has increased.
The number of international visitors is also on the up, growing by 13 per cent to almost a quarter of a million, 224,000, with spending increasing too to $368 million, up by 23 per cent. Our growth in international visitor numbers is three per cent higher than the national average, and their spending has has grown eight per cent faster than for the country as a whole.
The USA has overtaken China as a main market, recording 29 per cent growth to 31,100 visitors, compared to 24,000 from China.
This is not surprising, after Travel + Leisure, a North American publication, named Tasmania the best island destination in Australia, New Zealand and South Pacific region and the fourth best in the world.
Importantly, visitors are also getting out and about into our regions. While the South remains steady, the number of visitors to the East Coast has increased by six per cent, the North by three per cent and the Cradle Coast four per cent.
These results are a testament to the hard work and dedication of our tourism and hospitality operators who are giving more and more travellers a reason to come to Tasmania.
They are also a result of the Government’s plan to support and invest in our competitive strengths, and our tourism industry is certainly one of those.
As a Government, we will continue to work in partnership with the industry to continue this great growth in the visitor economy, to meet the demand and the expectations of tourists.
Source:- Tourism Tasmania
|
||
   
|
||
