Australia’s Foreign Tourism.
Last year, there were 5.9 million international visitors to Australia staying a total of 217 million nights and spending $28.9 billion. Tourism is still as important as ever to our economy, so it’s important for you as a holiday park owner to understand the importance of keeping your foreign campers happy. At your holiday park, you’re bound to have quite a few international visitors passing through or staying a few nights to take in the sights. Either way, there were some interesting statistics gleaned from last year’s Tourism Research Australia International Visitor Survey.
The Main Reasons for Travel
- International visitors travelling for a holiday accounted for 39 per cent of all travellers.
- Travelling for education purposes accounted for 22 per cent.
- Visiting friends and relatives accounted for 16 per cent.
- Travelling for business accounted for 11 per cent.
- Visitors travelling for employment purposes accounted for 8 per cent.
- Travelling for other reasons accounted for 3 per cent.
As you can see, most of all 2013 international travellers were travelling for leisure purposes. Holidays accounted for 45 per cent of all arrivals. Those visiting friends and relatives accounted for 27 per cent of international travel. Leisure visitors accounted for the greatest growth for international visitation.
How Many People Came from Where?
Asia
Visitors from Asian countries accounted for strong growth, with China leading, where the number of Chinese visitors increased by 14 per cent. Visitor numbers from Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan and India also increased. However, visitors from Japan and Korea decreased by 7 and 3 per cent respectively. One in five first time visitors were from China.
United States
Because of the strong growth in travelling for leisure, US travellers also increased strongly. Those visiting from the US were the largest on record, increasing 6 per cent up to 472,500. The total spent on travel to Australia from US travellers was up 9 per cent.
Europe
Traveller numbers from the UK increased by 8 per cent and total expenditure was up 12 per cent. Visitors from Italy increased by 10 per cent and from France and Germany by 6 per cent
Backpacker Travel
Backpackers remain an important sector of the tourism market. Backpack visitors were up 3 per cent. Backpack travellers account for 10 per cent of all international visitors and 15 per cent of total trip expenditure.
Which States and Territories Are Most Popular to Visit?
Here are the numbers of international travellers each state attracted last year, from greatest to least:
- New South Wales: 3,004,914 visitors.
- Queensland: 2,033,753 visitors.
- Victoria: 1,958,410 visitors.
- Western Australia: 764,545 visitors.
- South Australia: 377,703 visitors.
- Northern Territory: 260,436 visitors.
- ACT: 181,686 visitors.
- Tasmania: 159,318 visitors.