A Tourism Australia report says that that Australian domestic tourism has bounced back and that South Australia is leading the way, with the number of travellers staying at least one night in a state other than their own up 6.8% nationally, an increase of 1.57 million to 24.6 million, in the 12 months to March 31.
In South Australia the lift was twice as high, with 1,962,000 interstate visitors in SA being 234,000 or 13.5% greater than the 1,728,000 to March 31 last year.
The number of South Australians holidaying in their own state was up 107,000, or 3.2% to 3,389,000.
New South Wales is the most popular domestic destination amongst Australian travellers, with the research finding that 30% of all overnight trips in Australia over the last 12 months were made to New South Wales.
Australians spent a total of almost $56 billion on domestic tourism, a 7% increase on the previous period.
NSW State Tourism Minister Matt Brown says it is good news for regional New South Wales, adding, “Those areas have been doing it tough with the drought.”
“Tourism is an important part of those regional economies with some 40 per cent of their economy due to tourism and that’s going to provide job security for all those workers in the tourism industry, and also make sure that the return on investment to those tourism operators is well received.”
Figures are in the Travel by Australians report from Tourism Research Australia published yesterday.
Report by The Mole and the Adelaide Advertiser and The Sydney Morning Herald
