Bali’s a tourism threat
Cheap flights snatch visitors from North
CHEAP overseas deals to places such as Bali continue to emerge as the biggest threat to Far North tourism as recent survey results show a decline in visitor numbers.
Tourism Research Australia’s National Visitor Survey for the year ending September 2017 showed domestic overnight visitation to the Tropical North Queensland region was down by 2.8 per cent to 1.8 million people and expenditure fell 2 per cent to $1.9 billion.
Visitation from interstate dropped 12.5 per cent to 612,000 as well, driven primarily by a decline in visitors from NSW.
The report notes visitors from Sydney, in particular, had been trending down over the past three years.
Tourism Tropical North Queensland chief executive Pip Close pointed out the positives from the report, which showed intrastate visitation up by 3.3 per cent to 1.2 million, driven by holiday travel, which had increased 15.3 per cent. Visitors also spent 0.7 more nights in the region on average.
Ms Close said the domestic market had grown by 24 per cent over the past five years, an average of 6 per cent growth a year, with drive and cruise ship visitors helping to push figures along.
“The accommodation sector is performing well,” Ms Close said. “Cheap overseas deals to places like Bali are proving attractive to southern travellers finding it hard to get seats to Cairns at the last minute.
“More than 80 per cent of international passengers arrive in Cairns via domestic routes, pushing up prices and limiting seat availability for domestic passengers. As more direct international flights come on line for Cairns we anticipate domestic aviation capacity will once again become more favourable for interstate visitors.
“We have already seen discounting begin with Jetstar advertisements for discounted flights to Cairns after Chinese New Year appearing the week after the first direct China Southern flight landed in the city.”