On scenic road to top travel award
THE Great Ocean Road has been named the country’s best road trip at the Australian Traveller People’s Choice Awards.
Victoria led the way at the awards with Melbourne named Australia’s favourite city by travellers for the sixth straight year. Australia’s sporting and cultural capital was judged best city travel experience, while Chin Chin was judged best restaurant at the awards, decided by more than 5900 travellers.
The State Government has spent $12 million on the biggest campaign in years to lure more interstate tourists.
Research shows interstate visitor numbers and spending increased in the year to June.
But the latest Holiday Tracking Survey results reveal traveller preferences to visit Melbourne were down from 23 to 21.2 per cent.
The decline is larger than that seen for Sydney (-1.3 per cent) Brisbane (-0.3) and Adelaide (-0.2).
In a bid to bolster visitor numbers to Melbourne, a campaign showcasing the MCG, music and landmarks will be screened interstate and in New Zealand.
State Tourism Minister John Eren said the pressure was on to remain a tourism leader as other states tried to tap into the lucrative sector.
“Because of the value of the visitor economy, every state and territory understands the importance of it and it’s a competitive market,’’ Mr Eren said.
He said the sector was now worth about $23 billion to the state economy and generated about 215,000 jobs but the aim was to lift that to $36.5 billion and 320,000 jobs by 2025.