Tourists’ home comfort

Domestic visitors up but expenditure still lagging

CITY tourism bosses are hailing a jump in Australians holidaying at home on the Gold Coast – but the Federal Tourism Minister continues to highlight the need to boost expenditure.

The number of Australian visitors overnighting on the Coast in 2017 climbed by 8.1 per cent to 4.1 million, latest figures show.

They spent $3.1 billion, up 3.8 per cent on what was spent in 2016.

Destination Gold Coast CEO Martin Winter said the continued growth in domestic overnight stays was a positive sign and federal minister Steven Ciobo agreed.

But Mr Ciobo repeated his concern about expenditure not keeping pace, calling the results a “step in the right direction”.

“More needs to be done to raise expenditure to be on par with the increasing national average,’’ he said.

“The Gold Coast tourism industry is showing signs of improvement, with domestic overnight trips 1 per cent higher than the national average, but we are still tracking behind when it comes to expenditure.”

Mr Winter said domestic overnight totals were complemented by 8.05m day trippers spending $786.5m and just over a million international visitors spending $1.2b.

“The city is mere days away from hosting the Commonwealth Games and these figures show the momentum generated leading into that major event,’’ Mr winter said.

“To be up 8 per cent yearon-year in domestic overnight stays and to once again top five million overall, when we add in international overnight visitors, tells a really positive story of the previous 12 months.”

The National Visitor Survey numbers, from Tourism Research Australia, show 48 per cent of visitors hit the worldfamous beaches, 2.9m dined at restaurants and cafes and 1.2 million enjoyed retail therapy.

Queensland Tourism Minister Kate Jones said hard work

had gone into getting more flights into the Coast and capitalising on the Games.

“These figures show that this is already paying off.”