Tourism Accommodation Australia has welcomed news the Tourism 2020 goal to grow total overnight visitor expenditure to $115 billion has been met ahead of schedule.

Figures released today reveal that together, international and national total overnight visitor expenditure is now at a record $118.9b - more than three billion over target.

TAA National CEO Michael Johnson praised Federal Tourism Minister Simon Birmingham for meeting the target, noting the Government’s overseas marketing campaigns in particular have added to Australia’s desirability as a tourism destination. 

“The combined efforts of the tourism and accommodation sectors allied with the Federal Government have seen us more than surpass the Tourism 2020 goals of increasing total overnight visitor expenditure from $70b to $115b,” Mr Johnson said.

“I would like to congratulate Minister Birmingham and his team for their support for our sector.”

Mr Johnson also said National Visitor Survey figures for the year ending March 2019 show Australian domestic tourism continues to grow.

“Australians took 109 million overnight trips across the country over that period, staying 386 million nights and spending a record $74.5 billion. What is particularly welcome is more than half of that spend occurred in regional areas (nearly $38 billion)." he said.

NSW continues to be the number one state regarding visitor nights for regional locations across all accommodation categories. It also attracts the biggest share of domestic visitor nights overall, with 28.8% of all visitors.

“The ‘Hotels, Motels, and Resorts’ category had 25% of all nights and grew to 96.9 million. Nights spent in this category actually grew in all capital cities except Brisbane (1.65% decline). Melbourne, Sydney, Gold Coast, Perth, and Hobart all experienced growth of between 14 - 18%.

“There was regional growth in ‘Hotels, Motels and Resorts’ figures in WA (24.36%), QLD (18.45%) and SA (15.82%). In regional Tasmania there was an increase across all accommodation categories of 6.27%.”

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See also: 

Domestic visitors return in record numbers to Gold Coast

Michael Johnson commences new role as Tourism Accommodation Australia CEO

Record tourism spend boosts Queensland’s market share