City visitors splash out

VISITORS to Townsville have injected about three quarters of a billion dollars into the local economy, fresh data shows.

And the visiting friends and relative market is one of the city’s strongest markets.

The latest statistics, for the year ending March 2018, re- veal that the domestic overnight expenditure in the Townsville region was stable at $ 753.3 million.

The Domestic Tourism Snapshot, which provides an overview of the domestic visitors to Queensland and its regions and includes number of visitors, their reason for travel and their expenditure, shows that 1,074,000 visitors stayed in Townsville in the year ending March 2018, which was down 3.6 per cent from the same period the year before.

“Despite the recent soften- ing, visitation was stable over the long term (- 0.2 per cent three year trend),” the tourism snapshot report said. “The interstate market was stable (+ 0.5 per cent) at 220,000 visitors overall while the larger intrastate market declined by 4.7 per cent to 854,000 visitors.”

The tourism snapshot report stated that the “decline in visitation was largely due to a decline in business travel, which was down by 9.7 per cent to 305,000 visitors”.

Townsville Enterprise Tourism and Events executive manager Bridget Woods said the evidence collected locally showed the business travel market had shown a “slight increase”.

“When we spoke about this with our tourism and events strategic advisory committee at Townsville Enterprise, the ( business travel) data was not reflective of what is being observed on the ground in Townsville,” she said.

“The hotel statistics in the corporate hotel sector are seeing a slight increase on the room nights through their businesses, which is also being reflected in the strong growth through the Townsville Airport.

“The way the data is collected in the regions the size of Townsville, the sample size is smaller. Therefore there can be discrepancies between what operators are seeing on the ground and what the research is telling us.”

Ms Woods said the “visiting friends and relatives” market was an important one for Townsville.

The Domestic Tourism Snapshot showed that market rose by 1.1 per cent to 309,000 people.

“The visiting friends and relative market is crucial to Townsville,” she said. “Every member of the community plays a part in ensuring the visiting friends and relative market stays strong.

“It is about the local community being proud of where they live and inviting their family and friends to visit and share the great experiences and attractions the region has to offer.”