Tourists spent a whopping $113.4 billion in Australia last year as more travellers are heading to the bush or regional coastal towns for their holidays, according to the latest International Visitor and National Visitor Survey results.
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Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment Simon Birmingham said it was encouraging to see that more of the 8.4 million international travellers to Australia were heading to regional destinations.
“Australia’s tourism industry continues to see strong growth and our regions are starting to reap the benefits,” Mr Birmingham said.
“These latest results show 2.84 million international travellers chose to travel beyond our capital cities and spent time in the bush, at the coast or even in the outback.
”This is great news for regional towns around Australia and it’s also terrific to see travellers moving off the beaten track.
“With forty-three cents in every tourism dollar is spent in regional Australia, every single dollar makes a big difference to small businesses and local communities.
“Regional destinations also continue to be popular for Aussies with domestic spending in regional Australia increasing 10 per cent to $36.2 billion during the year.”
One in 13 Australians are employed in the tourism industry.
China continues to be the number country for visitors, with numbers up eight per cent to 1.3 million. Visitors from India increased by 20 per cent to 324,000, and there was good growth in the number of arrivals from Japan, up 6 per cent to 419,000.
The latest International Visitor Survey and National Visitor Survey results are available at: www.tra.gov.au.
