Australia Tourism Still Upbeat, Up 4% in June Quarter

Visitors coming to Australia has risen despite global economic uncertainty, the strong Australian dollar and natural disasters, according to Australia's Minister for Tourism.

Citing the Tourism Research Australia’s International Visitor Survey, Tourism reported that visitor arrivals rose by three percent up to end June. Visitor nights rose by four percent and expenditure by five per cent.

Business travel was buoyant as the number of business travellers to Australia rose by nine per cent for the period.

Asian markets were the strongest performers, led by China.

"These are encouraging figures, considering the global economic circumstances and the pressure the tourism industry is under from the high Australian dollar," said the Minister for Tourism, Martin Ferguson in a statement.

"Domestic tourism makes up three quarters of the sector and some parts of Australia are still doing it tough, so Australians need to balance out the appeal of overseas travel with Australian holiday breaks to support the sector which employs half a million Australians," Ferguson said.

He urged the Australian tourism industry is to invest in innovative ways, to make Australia an even more attractive place to travel for business or vacation.

The Minister Assisting on Tourism, Senator Nick Sherry, said the figures on business travel were especially encouraging.

"The nine per cent increase in business visitors opens up fresh opportunities for investment in quality hotels and other tourism infrastructure," Sherry said.

"Business travellers are high-yield tourists and their spending totalled more than $8 billion last year," he said.

There was solid growth from Asia with visitor numbers up (10 percent), nights up (seven percent) and expenditure up (12 percent).

Of the top-ten markets from Asia, China was the strongest where visitor numbers (26 percent), nights (12 percent) and spend (19 percent) were all higher. Solid growth in visitor numbers was also recorded for Malaysia (14 percent), Indonesia (13 percent), India (11 percent) and Singapore (10 percent).

Source - ibtimes