The number of nights spent by international visitors in South Australia dropped substantially in the year to December 2014, despite the total number of visitors to Australia rising 8 per cent to a record 6.4 million.
Tourism Research Australia’s latest International Visitor Survey, released yesterday, has mainly good news for the national tourism industry, with most states and territories recording strong increases in tourist numbers and spending.
South Australia and the ACT were the only two to show a decline in international visitor numbers in the year ending December 2014.
According to the survey, there were 372,733 visitors to this state, compared with around 378,000 in the year to December 2013 – a fall of 1.4 per cent.
During the same period, the number of visitor nights (all accommodation) dropped 17.6 per cent, while regional trip expenditure fell 2.3 per cent, from $727 million to $710 million. The decline is even more marked between the quarters ending December 2013 and 2014.
In terms of the number of international visitor nights spent in each tourism region for the year to December 2014, Adelaide ranks sixth out of 20 – after Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane and the Gold Coast, but ahead of tropical North Queensland, Canberra and Darwin.
Tourism Research Australia said four of the top five markets recorded record visitation and trip spending, driven by an 18 per cent rise in the number of visitors from China.
Nationally, there was also growth in the number of visitors from the United States, Singapore and New Zealand.
“Given the current record performance, coupled with the lower Australian dollar, our proximity to the growth markets of Asia, and continued economic recovery in Western markets, the outlook for inbound travel remains positive,” Tourism Research Australia assistant general manager Spiro Kavadias said in a statement.
“With record international arrivals and strong growth in the investment pipeline, the tourism industry is in a good position to attain its Tourism 2020 goal of increasing overnight tourism expenditure to between $115 and $140 billion by 2020.”
The South Australian Government has a target of creating an $8 billion tourism industry with 10,000 extra jobs by 2020.
Asked for comment on the latest Tourism Research Australia figures, Tourism Minister Leon Bignell told InDaily the State Government’s priority was to “exponentially grow the tourism sector and create thousands of jobs”.
“The State Government has just announced an unprecedented investment in tourism marketing – $35 million to attract international and interstate tourists, as well as $15 million for the events and conventions bid fund,” he said.
Speaking at an SA Tourism Industry Council tourism conference in Adelaide earlier this month, Adam Stanford, strategy and insights manager at the SA Tourism Commission (SATC), said the industry would need to focus on increasing international, interstate and intrastate visitor numbers to reach the “ambitious” 2020 targets.
The full Tourism Research Australia report can be downloaded here.
