DOMESTIC VISITORS GROW AND SPEND BIG IN SOUTHERN GREAT BARRIER REEF!
Posted on December 21st, 2016
The Southern Great Barrier Reef (SGBR) Destination continues to shine, after winning a Queensland Tourism Award last month for Destination Marketing, domestic numbers and their dollar spend continue to grow as visitors discover some of the best experiences in Queensland!
The National Visitor Survey (NVS) results released today reveal a total of 1.932 Million domestic visitors to the Southern Great Barrier Reef Destination to the year ending September 2016, which is made up predominantly of holiday/leisure visitors (585,000), those visiting friends and relatives (VFR) (583,000) and business visitors (627,000).
The Southern Great Barrier Reef (SGBR) Destination takes in the three regional tourism precincts of Capricorn (Central Highlands/Rockhampton/Capricorn Coast/Keppel Islands,
Gladstone (incl. Town of 1770/Agnes Water) and Bundaberg (incl. Bargara, North Burnett).
Of the 1.932 Million domestic visitors to the SGBR Destination, 1.67 Million were from within Queensland and 262,000 were from Interstate, with strong growth from Melbourne and Victoria.
Capricorn Enterprise chief executive Mary Carroll said “a strong winter season right across our destination, from the Sandstone Wilderness areas of Carnarvon Gorge and Sapphire Gemfields through to our pristine SGBR coastline and islands attributed to a 1.2% growth in our interstate market, particularly from Victoria. There is a direct correlation between our joint marketing efforts and these positive results.”
Visitor expenditure to the year ending September 2016 to the SGBR destination has reached just over $1 Billion and is up 7.2% from the previous year.
Gladstone Area and Promotion Ltd (GAPDL) chief executive Darryl Branthwaite said “we believe the 7.2% increase in visitor expenditure is largely due to the new cruise ship market into the Port of Gladstone which resulted in 18,000 passengers and crew on-shore to the year ending September 2016. These day trip visitor numbers don’t show up in the official statistics which record overnight visitors, but it’s very clear from the spike in expenditure that this is a major factor to the $1 Billion spend.”
585,000 holiday/leisure visitors to the SGBR destination resulted in an increase of 2.6% from the previous year to September 2016.
The average length of stay for visitors to the SGBR destination remained stable at 4 nights, as did the total number of visitor nights at 7.7 Million to the year ending September 2016.
Bundaberg North Burnett General Manager Katherine Mergard said “our SGBR destination is experiencing increased product development in tours, both marine and on the mainland to cater for our visitor growth. We had a record turtle season last summer which is expected to be even bigger this season. Coupled with the addition of the Lady Musgrave Island experience from Bundaberg and the $8.5 million dollar Bundaberg Rum Visitor Centre development, the destination is poised for continued growth.”
Mary Carroll
CEO Capricorn Enteprise
