The Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment, the Hon Steven Ciobo MP, released Tourism Research Australia’s publication, State of the Industry 2015-16.
The new look report is online, interactive and provides an overview of the tourism industry’s performance in 2015-16.
International and domestic visitors have contributed a record $116.7 billion to the Australian economy, creating new jobs and reconfirming tourism’s status as a super growth sector.
The State of the Industry 2015–16 report confirms 2015-16 was a record year for Australia’s tourism industry and it is going to continue to grow with total tourism spend forecast at $162 billion by 2020-21.
Produced by Tourism Research Australia (TRA) the report shows how the industry is tracking against the Tourism 2020 targets, the joint plan between industry and government to boost overnight visitor spending to between $115 billion and $140 billion by 2020.
The report reconfirms positive growth across all major Australian markets against their Tourism 2020 targets including; expenditure, visitation, aviation, accommodation and labour force.
China continues to lead market growth and encouragingly is 98 per cent of the way towards its 2020 expenditure target of $9 billion annually.
Harnessing this growth, the Turnbull Government designated 2017 the China–Australia Year of Tourism to further grow Australia’s tourism industry by promoting Australia to China.
More Australians than ever are deciding to take “staycations” spending a total of $59 billion with day trip visitors contributing an additional $19.6 billion to the economy.
The positive growth also extends to international aviation capacity, growing 6.2 per cent to 23.5 million available inbound seats and with accommodation room supply increasing 1.4 per cent to 249,131 rooms.
For the first time, The State of the Industry 2015–16 report is available in an interactive, web-based format.
To download a copy of the report, visit www.tra.gov.au.
Source: Tourism Research Australia and Australian Trade and Investment Commission.