The Territory Labor Government’s Turbocharging Tourism investment continues to deliver economic benefit with visitor numbers to the Northern Territory up by 6.7 per cent in the year ending September 2019.
Spending $2.6 billion, 1.95 million domestic and international visitors travelled to the NT on holiday, to visit friends and relatives, for business travel, study and employment. Of this, 973 000 were holiday visitors, up 8.1 per cent on the previous year.
Interstate holiday visitors to the Territory, a key target market for the Government’s Turbocharging Tourism investment, grew by 8.9 per cent for the year.
The results also show strong growth internationally, driven by increasing visitors from Japan and the US, with the NT performing second-best nationally in terms of international visitor growth, behind ACT.
The devastating bushfires currently impacting many communities across the country will likely have an effect on people’s future travel plans.
Whilst it is still too early to quantify the impacts of the bushfires, Tourism NT is working with Tourism Australia and other state tourism bodies to let people know that Australia is Open for Business.
As stated by Acting Minister for Tourism, Sport and Culture, Eva Lawler:
“Tourism is a highly competitive global industry and we need to ensure that we keep our foot on the pedal when it comes to promoting the Territory, because more visitors means more money into the economy and more jobs for locals.
“These figures show that when we do increase our investment and focus on marketing the Territory, we see a direct increase in visitation.
“We have exceeded our 2020 visitor spend target by $400 million, with visitors spending $2.6 billion locally in the year to September 2019.
“We are now working to build on these results and achieve our 2030 targets of more than 3 million visitors a year, accounting for $3.67 billion in visitor expenditure.”
