International Expenditure Record Shattered with 20% Growth in 2015

Gold Coast Tourism today welcomed news that international visitor expenditure on the Gold Coast was up 20% in 2015, reaching a new record of $1.23 billion.

“The continued growth in international visitor expenditure for the Gold Coast is astounding,” Gold Coast Tourism Chief Executive Officer, Martin Winter said. “In just three years, international visitor expenditure on the Gold Coast has increased by a massive 47%.”

“We've seen visitor growth from priority markets of the UK (+6%), Japan (+3%) and India (+9%); however, it's China that has been the key growth market for the Gold Coast,” Martin explained.

“In 2015, there were 242,000 Chinese visitors to the Gold Coast, up by an impressive 20% (or 40,000 visitors) on the previous year. Given the successful Chinese New Year we've just had and the announcement of more direct services, coupled with the Chinese investment in tourism infrastructure in the city - we expect this growth to continue well into 2016.

“We're also seeing that international visitors are spending more time on the Gold Coast. The average length of stay for an international visitor was up 8% to eleven nights. This has obvious flow on effects for international visitor expenditure, with a new spend per visitor record also reached in 2015,” he added.

“Encouragingly, visitors from Japan were up 3%, turning around a long period of decline in this market. Even more encouraging is that Japanese visitors are staying longer on the Gold Coast, with the average length for a Japanese visitor to the Gold Coast up 15.4% to 18 nights.

In 2015, the Gold Coast also received more visitors from the USA (+25% to 35,000), India (+9% to 25,000) and South Korea (+22% to 24,000).

“With the 2018 Commonwealth Games around the corner and new international routes opening up, the inbound tourism opportunity for the Gold Coast has never been greater.

“In just over two months' time, the Gold Coast will welcome, for the first time, the Australian Tourism Exchange to the city. This event will bring over 600 international travel buyers to the Gold Coast; and while the event itself will inject around $10 million into the local economy, the expected international growth prospects this event will provide will continue well into the future,” Martin said.

International visitor statistics are provided by Tourism Research Australia.