Visitors to Queensland over the past year spent more than $90 million a day.
New figures from Tourism Research Australia show the state’s visitor economy reached $34.1 billion in overnight expenditure (OVE) in the year to March.
The research found the Sunshine State welcomed 24.9 million domestic and 2.1 million international visitors over that time.
State Tourism Minister Michael Healy said visitors spent an average of $93.2 million in the state’s economy every day, which supported 260,000 Queensland jobs both directly and indirectly employed by tourism.
“Latest figures show we’re on track to achieve our target of a $44.4 billion tourism industry by 2032,” Minister Healy said.
The research showed that the international market accounted for $6.1 billion OVE, which was slightly more than the 2019 pre-COVID numbers.
Minister Healy said New Zealand was Queensland’s biggest source market with visitation close to what it was before COVID-19, at 93.5 percent.
“Visitors from New Zealand and the USA both generated more OVE than ever before, whilst the UK and Japan markets also exceeded the amount of OVE generated in 2019.”
Two regions reached new international OVE records, with Brisbane hitting $3.2b and Sunshine Coast raking in $371.1m.
Domestically, Australia overall saw a contraction in holiday visitation, while Queensland’s domestic holiday market share was 0.6 percent ahead of its 2019 share.
Minister Healy said Queensland held the country’s second largest market share of holiday expenditure, with 27.3 percent of total domestic spend, worth $14.2b.
“Queensland benefitted from the ongoing return of business travel, as 5.7m domestic business visitors contributed a record $5.4bn to the state’s economy in overnight expenditure.”
