Great Barrier Reef delivers once again
Record numbers of visitors achieve $1.3 billion spend
Australian travellers have chosen The Whitsundays as their favourite Queensland destination, with the latest National Visitor Survey (NVS) revealing a record 811,000 domestic visitors, who spent a collective $1.3 billion in the year to June 2022, an increase of 31.2 percent.
Tourism Whitsunday’s Chief Executive Officer, Rick Hamilton said the broad appeal of The Whitsundays had helped it outshine other destinations domestically and overseas, with the gateway to the Great Barrier Reef once again delivering record numbers of visitors and spend.
“We are clearly the stand-out region in Queensland, with the highest percentage increase of overnight visitor expenditure, along with record increases in domestic holiday visitors,” he said.
“Domestic visitors enjoyed 3.7 million nights in our world-class destination with an average spend per visitor of $1,613.
“This underlines the significant contribution that tourism makes here, as we are a region that relies on tourism for 1 in 3 jobs.
“These results are excellent validation of our unparalleled product offering and the investment our operators have been making in new experiences for all visitor demographics, after what has been a difficult two and a half years,” Mr Hamilton said.
Mr Hamilton said that intrastate visitors are still the largest demographic of visitor but it’s encouraging to see the strong increase in interstate visitors, with Whitsunday Coast Airport continuing to deliver record growth mainly from Melbourne and Sydney domestic markets.
“The results released yesterday show that The Whitsundays is one of the most desirable destinations in Australia and we’re looking forward to continued growth in the interstate and international markets.
“We have had a year of record visitation and the forward projections we’re looking at suggest this trend will continue through until late January 2023.”
The Whitsundays is the most tourism-reliant area in Queensland with 1 in 3 jobs directly related to tourism, and 40 percent of all visitation to the Great Barrier Reef departing from within the region.
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.
