Domestic tourism is on the rise in the Whitsundays according to the latest National Visitor Survey, with Member for Whitsunday Jan Jarratt, who was sworn in as Tourism Parliamentary Secretary yesterday, saying the figures were excellent news for tourism in the Whitsundays.
Ms Jarratt said more than $624 million had been spent by overnight domestic visitors to the Whitsundays in the year ending June 2007, adding, “This is largely generated by a 14 per cent increase in domestic overnight visitation and a four per cent increase in visitor nights in the region.”
“It is great to see that more than 604,000 Australians chose to visit one of Queensland’s truly special holiday regions.
“Over the past year domestic holiday visitation increased by a fantastic 24 per cent.
“Last year 407,000 visitors stayed more than 1.9 million visitor nights specifically for holiday purposes.
“The strongest market for the Whitsundays was intrastate holiday visitors with 57 per cent of domestic overnight holiday visitors to the region coming from Queensland.”
Ms Jarratt said the great figures reflected the strong partnerships Tourism Queensland had with both local government and industry organisations suuch as Tourism Whitsundays.
“I am looking forward to the continued growth of the region together with the entire Queensland tourism industry,” she said.
Tourism Whitsundays CEO, Peter O’Reilly said that the results were indicative of the growing strength of 74 Islands brand in the domestic market.
“It is a truly remarkable achievement that these increases are realised at a time when the strong Australian dollar is making international travel a very attractive proposition for our traditional domestic market” he said.
Report by The Mole
