Domestic Visitors Sets New Records with $57.9 Billion Overnight Spend

Margy Osmond

Australia's domestic visitor economy continues to set new records with the latest figures for 2015 revealing strong growth in overnight trips, nights and expenditure said the Tourism & Transport Forum Australia (TTF).

The National Visitor Survey released today by Tourism Research Australia has confirmed that in the year ending December 2015, there were 87.1 million overnights trips (up 7 per cent), 322 million visitor nights (up 4 per cent) and $57.9 billion in overnight expenditure (up 6 per cent).

Daytrip expenditure rose by six per cent to $19 billion for the year, alongside a nine percent increase in daytrips to 179.6 million.

“This is another fantastic result for Australia's domestic visitor economy and just goes to show that the Australian love affair with seeing and experiencing the delights of our own island nation is only growing,” said Margy Osmond, TTF CEO.

“NSW continues to lead the charge with $16.1 billion in overnight visitor expenditure followed closely by Queensland ($14.5 billion) and Victoria ($12.1 billion).

“The ACT (25 per cent) and Tasmania (20 per cent) have seen double digit growth in overnight visitor expenditure in the past 12 months – a great result for these two markets that highlights the value of investing in the visitor economy. Tasmania is a standout with double digit growth in all three indicators.

“Western Australia ($6.7 billion), South Australia ($3.5 billion) and the Northern Territory ($1.5 billion) are performing very strongly with at least 6 per cent growth in visitor expenditure over the past year.

“Together with the strong performance in Australia's international visitor market, total overnight visitor expenditure reached a record $94.5 billion meaning our nation's visitor economy is well positioned to be a job and economic growth generator for years to come.

“Today's figures only serve to emphasise why Government should back the visitor economy as one of the pillars of Australia's future economy.

“A strong partnership between Government and industry is the approach we need to take the visitor economy to the next level, by encouraging more Australians to explore their homeland and attracting more international visitors to our shores, through cutting the cost of visas and improving the visitor experience.”