Western Australian tourism is riding a wave of success, with a new report by Tourism Research Australia showing the number of visitors to WA and their total spend has reached an all-time high.
According to the latest National Visitor Survey (NVS) for the year ending March 2019, and the recent International Visitor Survey (IVS), WA had a record-breaking 2.66 million out-of-state (international and interstate) visitors. Spending by these visitors also increased by 7.6 per cent to $3.9 billion.
The combined NVS and IVS results also show total (international and domestic) overnight visitors of 11.1 million. These visitors, together with day-trippers, spent $10.1 billion in the State, $4.6 billion (46 per cent) of which was spent in regional WA.
Taken alone, the NVS results also revealed more good news. Western Australia recorded 1.7 million visitors from interstate with an overall spend of $1.7 billion – the highest figures to date.
Of those visitors, 440,000 came to the State for a holiday; an increase of 11.4 per cent on last year. Their spending shot up by nearly 33 per cent to $739 million, a growth rate that has outstripped all other States and Territories.
The survey also showed growing numbers of Western Australians are holidaying at home, with intrastate holiday trips increasing by 16.3 per cent to 3.6 million and corresponding spend up 21.7 per cent to $2.2 billion.
In positive news for the State’s regional areas, all recorded a year-on-year increase in domestic overnight visitors.
To view the detailed NVS and IVS results for year ending March 2019 and for information about methodology changes relevant to this release, visit https://www.tourism.wa.gov.au
As stated by Tourism Minister Paul Papalia:
“These numbers reaffirm the success of our Two-Year Action Plan for tourism which was launched in March 2018.
“The McGowan Government’s focus on making WA the nation’s western gateway, and growing new direct flights from international markets like ANA’s Tokyo-Perth route commencing September 1, will boost visitor numbers even further.
“Our unprecedented doubling of international marketing spend over the next 12 months is also set to turbocharge visitor numbers from key tourist markets.
“The biggest winter of sport in the State’s history is being followed by new events like the Western Australian Gourmet Escape and the ATP World Cup, further driving up international and interstate visitor numbers.
“Re-establishing a marketing office on the east coast and running multimillion dollar campaigns to change the State’s reputation has also worked as we are now growing interstate visitors at the fastest rate in the country.
“Our cruise shipping strategy has attracted more homeporting and will double the number of cruise ship visitors to the State in the next cruise season.
“We know 2018 was the biggest tourism year in the State’s history and we are on track to break records again in 2019.
“And while we are thrilled to set new benchmarks in attracting people to WA, there’s always more to be done but we have a plan and it is working.”
