Foreign visitors spend record $28.9 billion in Australia

SYDNEY, Australia – International visitors to Australia spent a record $28.9 billion last year – a 6 percent rise from the prior year – with the strongest growth coming from the holiday and visiting friends and relative segments.

The latest International Visitor Survey found spending grew by an even stronger 9 per cent to $8.1 billion in the December quarter.

Tourism Australia managing director John O’Sullivan said the latest figures provided further evidence that Australia’s tourism industry was performing strongly and on track to achieve its Tourism 2020 targets of between $115 billion and $140 billion of total overnight visitor spending by the end of the decade.

“We certainly enjoyed a strong final quarter to end 2013, with international arrivals, visitor nights and spending all up,” he said.

“Pleasingly, much of this growth was driven by leisure and also spread across most of our key target markets, including the UK and USA, in line with our ‘balanced portfolio’ approach.”

The recent royal visit and airing of an Australia-focused episode of sitcom Modern Family are expected to help further boost interest from UK and US tourists this year. Overall, spending from UK visitors rose by 12 percent last year and US visitors by 9 per cent.

Chinese visitors, now the most lucrative market for Australia, spent a record $4.8 billion last year, up 16 percent despite new laws from October cracking down on cut-price shopping tours.

“The good news is that despite Chinese arrivals falling by 4 percent during the [December] quarter, total spend is up 13 percent, and average spend per visitor is up 17 percent,” Mr O’Sullivan said.

“We’re seeing a positive change in our visitor mix – away from group shopping tours towards a more independent, higher spending Chinese visitor, enjoying higher quality visitor experiences. Increases in independent travelling visitors means more Australian tourism businesses are getting to welcome Chinese, as they go farther and experience more of our country.”

Mr O’Sullivan said Tourism Australia planned to capitalise on the opportunity by focusing its marketing activities on the growing number of affluent and independently-minded Chinese travellers.

Japan and Korea were the most noticeable weak spots in terms of spending from major markets last year. Spending by Japanese visitors fell by 15 percent and Korean visitors by 14 percent.

Mr O’Sullivan last week said Japan remained an important market for Australian tourism and he hoped to improve its attractiveness through better events marketing.

“With things like the Asian Cup and the Japanese national team being so successful in football, we already know with things like the Gold Coast marathon that Japanese runners usually are the biggest or second largest number of international participants,” he said. “That is where I think events can play a role in some markets to start kickstarting the attraction of the destination.”

Jetstar  launched direct flights from Melbourne to Tokyo Narita, with up to 50,000 Japanese tourists expected to travel on the services each year. The flights – the only direct flights available from Melbourne to Tokyo – will operate four days a week. Source: smh.com.au

April 30, 2014