Queensland crowned nation’s tourism capital
TNQ, Whitsundays and Sunshine Coast reach record levels of visitor expenditure
A new ‘Domestic Tourism Snapshot’ released by Tourism & Events Queensland (TEQ) sees the Sunshine State outperforming the national average and all other states for Overnight Visitor Expenditure (OVE) growth.
The snapshot shows that holiday makers continued to lead the way with OVE in March 2022 recorded at 45.2 percent or $896 million higher than in March 2019, the 45.2 percent split evenly among intrastate and interstate holiday visitors.
Some of the growth has been attributed to the state’s largest endurance events, including the GC Marathon, Noosa Tri and IRONMAN Cairns which are bringing in droves of interstate competitors, particularly from NSW and Victoria, to take part.
On top of attending, participants, many of whom are accompanied by their families, have also built in extra time to stay on and relax on a post-event basis in various locations across the state.
Tropical North Queensland, the Whitsundays and the Sunshine Coast in particular have all been beneficiaries.
When compared to 2019, Tropical North Queensland’s OVE was up 18.8 percent, while the Sunshine Coast was up by 5.7 percent and the Whitsundays by 22.9 percent across the three-year trend.
The TEQ snapshot shows the increase in expenditure has predominately been led by an increase in spend on accommodation fuelled by a strong increase in average daily rates.
A total of 82.1 million domestic overnight trips were taken in Australia in the year ending March 2022, which is down 30.1 per cent compared to the pre-COVID-19 benchmark of the year ending December 2019.
Overnight visitor expenditure (OVE) was $63.3 billion, which is 21.5 per cent lower than the year ending December 2019.
National holiday OVE has returned to pre-COVID-19 levels (up 0.5 percent) at 33.7 billion with Australians continuing to holiday at home when they have been able to.
However other travel purposes are still softer including VFR expenditure, down 21.6 percent to $9.9 billion and business OVE, down 46.2 percent.
The report can be viewed here.
Mike Parker-Brown is a UK-trained and qualified journalist and an award-winning travel communicator with more than 30 years experience.
Since 2002, Mike has worked as a freelance writer and PR consultant providing his services to major organisations in Australia and internationally in the tourism, aviation, hospitality, recruitment and export marketing sectors.
