Tasmania’s visitor economy continues to shine and generally exceed expectations, with operators around the State seeing visitors flock to Tasmania, and most importantly, spend while they’re here.
This is despite there being a minimal return on international visitors to date, and despite the constraints we are seeing on air capacity.
Ian Rankine of Tas Vacations – the State’s largest travel wholesaler – said:
“There is no sign of bookings slowing at all and bookings for next three months are close to double those at this time last year.
“We have doubled our sales and reservations team in the last twelve months and working considerable overtime to keep up”.
TT Line has also experienced record bookings in recent months and has scheduled extra sailings with more being considered, and Port Arthur has recorded increased visitation in the last few months as tourists continue coming to the State before the busier warmer months.
This backs up the latest data from the latest Tasmanian Visitor Survey that confirmed total visitor spend for the year ending July 2022 hit $2.5 billion, and in the month of July alone, total spend was over $272 million – double than for the same month in 2019 before the pandemic.
Pleasingly the recently resumed Air New Zealand services between Hobart and Auckland are performing very strongly and are ahead of the airline’s own projections.
Virgin Australia’s recent announcement of the resumption of its Adelaide to Launceston and Perth to Launceston routes in the near future is further testament to the confidence in our destination and the immediate and longer-term demand for what we have to offer.
And we are determined to continue this momentum for the long term, which is why are investing in the transformational infrastructure that will attract even more people here – which in turn will allow us to invest more in essential services such as health, housing and education.
There is no doubt that Tasmania has what the world wants, and our tourism industry continues to be world leader, supporting thousands of jobs and businesses across the State and adding millions to our economy.
