Domestic Tourism; expenditure to Feb fell 13% across Australia

Posted on May 7, 2021 by Pete Faulkner - NSW, QLD, Tourism, Uncategorized, VIC

Monthly snapshot data from Tourism Research Australia (see here) shows that domestic tourism expenditures fell 13.1% in the year to Feb across Australia. However, with the notable exception of regional QLD which saw a 6.2% reduction after some very strong data in previous months, regional areas in all States saw solid growth with NSW the stand-out at +45%. That performance from their regional areas ensured NSW was the only State or Territory to record year-on-year growth (+1.2%).

Queensland still managed to perform well (down just 1.2%) on the back of some very strong data from Brisbane and The Gold Coast which saw a 4.4% y/y increase.

Since March 2020, and the start of the COVID pandemic being felt, expenditures are now up 7.6% nationally with only Victoria (down 19.8%) and South Australia (down 15.0%) not managing solid growth.

Queensland is up since March by 34.3% with the regions posting a 24.9% gain and Brisbane and The Gold Coast up 45.9%.

This data set does not allow us to breakdown spend into component regions; we will have to wait for the release of the March quarter National Visitor Survey (likely not released until June) to get that finer detail.