June National Visitor Survey shows just how well TNQ was doing before the lockdowns

Posted on September 29, 2021 by Pete Faulkner - Cairns, TNQ, Tourism, Uncategorized

Today sees the release by Tourism Research Australia of the June quarter National Visitor Survey data (see here). What it highlights is just how well the Tropical North QLD region was doing with domestic tourism before the effects of the NSW, Victoria and ACT lockdowns took their toll.

For the year to June 2021 nationally total domestic visitor numbers were down 5.1% from the previous year (and down 22.9% from 2 years ago) while expenditure fell by 5.9% (or down 21.1% from 2019).

Results in Queensland were significantly better with visitor numbers up 1.7% for the year (and down 18.0% from 2 years ago) with expenditures up 2.2% from 2020 (and down 13.8% from 2019).

Tropical North QLD was a stand-out winner over the period with visitor numbers up 8.6% since 2020 (and down just 5.4% since 2019) while expenditures rose 9.5% from 2020 (and were down just 2.9% since 2019). This strong performance from TNQ saw its share of the total Australian domestic market jump to its highest level (2.21%) since March 2010.

Obviously since the end of June things have changed significantly for the region and although we are yet to get any TRA data relating to July or later we can see the sharp downturn in activity when we consider the Google Mobility data for the Cairns Regional Council region.