Minister for Jobs, Investment, Tourism and Western Sydney Stuart Ayres said in the year ending March 2019 NSW welcomed 50.9 per cent of all international visitors to Australia.

“NSW has achieved a new high in terms of tourism related expenditure, with this latest survey confirming we have smashed the $11 billion expenditure milestone for the first time ever,” Mr Ayres said.

Key findings from the IVS:

• China remained Australia’s leading tourism market during the year ending March 2019, with numbers increasing by 3% to 1.3 million visitors, while trip spend increased 10% to reach $12 billion, an additional $1.1 billion.
• Visitor numbers from New Zealand increased by 2% during the year to reach 1.3 million. Trip spend also increased 2% to reach $2.6 billion.
• India continued as the strongest growth market, with visitor numbers up 15% to 343,000, nights up 21% to 20.9 million, and trip spend jumping 12% to reach a record $1.7 billion.
• Visitation from the UK was soft, down 4% to 673,000 visitors, with nights down 6% to 21.4 million, and trip spend down 5% to $3.3 billion.
• US visitation returned mixed results. Visitor numbers remained steady at 750,000, while nights fell by 8% to 13.1 million, and trip spend increased 6% to reach $4 billion, which suggests a better result for high yield visitors.

“NSW leads Victoria and Queensland across the three major metrics – visitation, bed nights and expenditure – reinforcing our position as the number one spot for tourists to visit.

“Sydney alone received 4.1 million international visitors, who stayed 82.3 million nights and spent over $10.1 billion, which is a phenomenal achievement and puts us well ahead of Melbourne and Brisbane.”

NSW remains the top destination for ten of the top fifteen source markets to Australia, namely China, USA, United Kingdom, Korea, Hong Kong, Germany, Canada, France and Indonesia.

The State has shown strong growth in the Japanese market over the past three years, which can be attributed to an increase in trade partnerships particularly around aviation.

“In 2015 Qantas and ANA both commenced daily flights from Haneda Airport (Tokyo) to Sydney, and consequently our marketing efforts in this market have also evolved. Now with this latest survey we see the number of visitors, bed nights and expenditure to the state increasing by 15.6% from the last survey.”

Regional NSW received 868,800 international visitors in the year ending March 2019, who stayed 15.1 million nights in the State’s rural centres.

“NSW received its highest ever share of visitor nights to regional Australia, which confirms that the word is spreading about the unique experiences guests can enjoy in areas such as the Central Coast, South Coast and Hunter region.”

Click here to view the Tourism Researh Australia website with further information.

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