Events behind increase in tourism expenditure
VISITOR numbers to Toowoomba and Southern Queensland slumped last year, yet tourist spending rose.
The latest figures from Tourism and Events Queensland revealed holiday visitors stayed longer at major events in 2016.
Southern Queensland Country Tourism’s CEO Mary-Clare Power said the fall in business visits to the region because of the loss of the CSG boom had been at least partially countered by holiday visitors.
Overall, visitor numbers in the year ending September 2016 dropped by 4.2 per cent to 1.912 million. However holiday numbers rose 3.2%.
Visitor expenditure rose by nearly 5% to $670 million for the same period, with a tourist spending an average of $350 per visit to the Darling Downs.
“I’m pretty happy with the figures overall, given the hammering the region has taken on (other) declining figures,” Ms Power said.
Events-based tourism appeared to be at least one of the factors behind the expenditure increase, according to Ms Power, as regions worked harder to encourage visitors to stay longer at major festivals like the Carnival of Flowers and the Felton Food Festival.
“It’s showing that the leisure visitors are spending the money, so that’s good to see,” she said.
“There’s probably a combination of things – events drive visitation, so people are spending more money at events and those events are working with Tourism Queensland to get an extended stay out of a visitor.”
Ms Power said holiday tourists who once felt displaced by the oil and gas boom had now started to head back to Southern Queensland for holidays.
“In the Western Downs (Chinchilla and Miles), there were a lot of resource workers so all accommodation was booked up, so a number of the visitors would bypass it,” she said.
“What we’re trying to do is claw back those visitors. There are places to stay and everyone’s ready and welcoming.
“These figures speak for themselves: that things are going well, but things could go better.”
Some experts have held up events-based tourism as a future powerhouse.
However Ms Power said a set amount of events marketed very effectively would yield better results.