The Accommodation Association has welcomed the continued strong growth in domestic visitation and visitor nights in Australia with 12% growth in capital city visitor nights and 5.6% growth in regional visitor nights, as reported by Tourism Research Australia.

“This growth is vital in sustaining confidence in investment in the accommodation sector at a time when the international market, while evidencing growth in overall terms, is being impacted by a range of geo-political factors," said Dean Long, CEO Accommodation Association.

“In the past 5 years, confidence in the Australia economy has resulted in a significant increase in accommodation investment across Australia, with 80% of new room supply in capital cities.”

Pleasingly the domestic figures demonstrated strong growth in visitor nights for the purpose of Business (15.9%) and Holiday (9.2%), a factor of the weak Australian dollar, investment in marketing and events and an unprecedented wave of investment in new hotel openings and refurbishments.

While the international market has softened, key markets such as the USA and Japan are showing good growth. The USA market growth is a testament to the continued impact of the Dundee campaign, in addition to economic and trade factors.

Growth from Japan will continue to be sustained by initiatives such as the new ANA flights to Perth, and the Federal Government announcement in early September, of expanded air services arrangements between Australia and Japan from March 2020.

“As a long-haul destination, aviation connectivity is critical in driving visitor growth. We commend the Australian government on their continued focus on improvements to aviation access," said Mr Long.

“The global economy is rapidly changing and in an increasingly competitive environment it is vital that we continue to review our policy settings, ensuring that visa fees and airport taxes and charges are benchmarked, Tourism Australia spend keeps pace with media inflation, capacity constraints are addressed and bilateral aviation access rights are opened up ahead of demand.”

Click here to access the latest National Visitor Survey (NVS) results

Click here to access the latest International Visitor Survey (IVS) results

See also: 

Western Australia welcomes record numbers of overseas and interstate visitors in 2018

"A new era of hotel development in Australia" - Tourism Australia

Domestic visitors return in record numbers to Gold Coast