The ACT has seen strong growth in the number of overnight visitors coming to the capital for the year ending June 2019. These visitors, combined with those visiting Canberra for day trips, made the year ending June 2019 the most successful for tourism on record.
Tourism Research Australia Visitor Survey data released last week shows 2.90 million Australian overnight visitors, 2.31 million Australian day trippers, and 266,278 international visitors came to the capital in the year ending June 2019, representing the highest visitor performance on record. These 5.48 million visitors spent a total of $2.82 billion during their stay, with domestic overnight visitors spending a record $1.87 billion, domestic day visitors spending $344 million, and international overnight visitors spending $605.4 million.
Our tourism and hospitality sector has been one of the biggest drivers of employment growth for the ACT. The industry now supports 19,300 jobs, with the latest annual employment growth for tourism sitting at 9.2 per cent, compared with 2.7 per cent for the ACT. A record rise in people visiting for holidays and business bumped up the domestic overnight numbers, while record growth in the leisure market of people coming for holidays and to visit family and friends contributed to the international overnight visitor growth.
Canberra’s key domestic overnight source markets remained Sydney and regional NSW, followed by Melbourne, regional Victoria and Brisbane, the latter reflective of the introduction of low cost carriers servicing those markets in recent years.
The top five source countries and their share of the ACT international visitor market were:
- China (20.5 per cent)
- United Kingdom (8.2 per cent)
- USA (8.1 per cent)
- India (7.1 per cent)
- New Zealand (6.4 per cent)
The result reflects the ACT Government’s commitment to growing the visitor economy to $2.5 billion by 2020 though concentrated destination marketing efforts across consumer, trade, media engagement, and cooperative campaigns with online travel agents and airlines.
The success of international tourism in the capital is growing alongside the increase in international flights to Canberra. Between Singapore Airlines and Qatar Airways, 14 international flights per week now arrive at Canberra Airport.
More information: Peta Lemmon, Assistant Director, Research and Consumer Insights, Peta.Lemmon@act.gov.au