Tassie wins in Dundee tourism blitz

AMERICANS have flocked to Tasmania in droves after the state was featured in a Crocodile Dundee tourism ad at last year’s Super Bowl.

About 46,000 US tourists visited over the year to June — an 11.7 per cent spike on last year’s numbers.

“This good result isn’t surprising with Freycinet playing a starring role in the original Dundee campaign ad which was watched by over 100 million Americans during last year’s Super Bowl,” federal Tourism Minister Simon Birmingham said.

Overall, Tasmania had a 2 per cent dip in the number of international visitors to 300,000, Tourism Research Australia’s International Visitor Survey found.

Overseas tourists’ spending also dropped, to $528 million, down from $554 million the year before.

It comes after several years of booming growth, with tourist numbers steadily increasing from 158,000 and a total spend of $235 million in 2013.

“This was not unexpected with the economic pressures on a domestic front, and the fall in visitation to Australia from China,” Tourism Industry Council Tasmania chief executive Luke Martin said.

“The reality is our planes and hotels are essentially full and we need new capacity to come online to fuel the next period of growth.”

But Tasmania could not be complacent and needed more investment in tourism marketing, workforce development and new visitor experiences, he said.

Premier Will Hodgman said tourism was thriving with a “healthy” level of international visits “despite not being at the record rates experienced in recent years”.

“We cannot afford to take our foot off the accelerator, which is why we are now working on the next stage of the T21 visitor economy strategy in partnership with industry,” he said.

“Tasmania has to work even harder to attract international visitors to our island and that’s why attracting a direct international flight to Tasmania is so important.”

Mr Hodgman said Tourism Tasmania was just weeks away from launching a new tourism brand that would create renewed buzz about the state.

Tasmanian Liberal senator Jonathon Duniam welcomed the boost in American tourists as a “great result”, saying Tasmania was “starting to become a destination of choice for the lucrative US market”.