Domestic tourism in TNQ records stunning growth in latest visitor survey


Domestic tourism in the Tropical North is booming with the latest results showing our region recorded higher growth rates than both state and national levels.

The latest National Visitor Survey released today reveals visitor numbers to TNQ jumped by 13.1% and expenditure soared by 25.1%.

That's higher than visitor growth of 7% and expenditure growth of 7.9% on a national level, and just 4.7% growth in visitor numbers and 10.3% expenditure growth on a statewide basis.

STELLAR RESULTS FOR TNQ

Economist Pete Faulkner from Conus described the latest domestic tourism results as "beyond stellar".

"Performance in the day trip market was also impressive (although much less important) in TNQ with visitors up 9.9% and expenditure leaping 38.0%," Mr Faulkner said.

"We have to say that these numbers look so exceptionally impressive as to warrant a good deal of scepticism, although the Tourism Research Australia release makes no mention of any specific issues with the data presented so we have to take these numbers at face value.

"All up, when we total overnight and day trips, TNQ saw an increase in expenditure of 26.7%."

All eyes are now on the upcoming release of the June 2018 International Visitor Survey, a market Mr Faulkner said TNQ has been struggling with of late.

"We hope that these wonderful numbers from the National Visitor Survey are a precursor to an improvement in the international market too," he said.