Australian Chamber – Tourism, the peak body of Australia’s tourism organisations, acknowledges the release of the International Visitors Survey today. The survey shows strong performance for tourism in the year ending March 2019.
“Tourism performance achieved the trifecta with visitor numbers, visitor nights and spend all being up for the year. This performance is the result of some very strong numbers in South-East Asia, South Asia, and India,” said John Hart, Australian Chamber – Tourism Chair.
“The number of visitors experienced a 3% increase over 271 million nights and a total spend of $44.3 billion. This is great news for the Australian economy from the tourism super-growth sector.
“The numbers from the Chinese market were strong. As the leading market into Australia, China’s numbers grew 3% with second trip numbers up 10%. India was again the number one growth market, growing at 15%.
“These results show a positive trend and a great return on the investment made through Tourism Australia on marketing our country as a destination. The focus on high-spending visitors is clearly working with spend growing faster than visitation and nights. This provides the greatest return to tourism and the economy.
“In one weak spot, the numbers of backpackers fell during the year to March 2019. The 4% reduction brings the number of visits to 610,000 from this market and nights down 8% to 40 million. Most backpackers are working holidaymakers, who spend approximately two and half times more than they earn and create over 25,000 jobs in the Australian economy.
“The Australian Chamber – Tourism urges the Government to continue to invest in promoting this market.”
