Caravan and camping visitor expenditure reaches $7.9 billion, exceeds 13 million trips

An analysis of tourism figures by Caravan Industry Association of Australia has revealed a rolling annual increase of 8% in caravan and camping trips to exceed 13 million domestic trips for the first time.

Commenting on the performance, the Association announced on its website “we all know caravan and camping is a favourite holiday option and lifestyle amongst Australians, and the latest figures from Tourism Research Australia have proven that the industry is continuing to go from strength to strength.

“The data revealed another solid performance from the domestic caravan and camping visitor economy through June 2019 - the strongest June quarter in a decade”

Some of the most notable figures include:

• Nights increased to a record high, reaching 55 million in a 5% annual increase.
• Total expenditure of caravan and camping visitors increased by 17% to exceed $7.9 billion.
• All states recorded growth in overnight caravan and camping trips, with South Australia and Northern Territory leading the way with growth of 23% and 22% respectively.
• 90% of visitor expenditure is in regional Australia.
• For the first time, the young/midlife no children demographic segment has overtaken the family demographic as the largest lifecycle group in terms of caravan/camping trips. This group is fuelled by the rapidly increasing 20-29-year brackets who are taking caravan and camping trips.

The 30-54 group also strongly increased in the number of trips taken to surpass 6 million, 46% of all trips.

The older non-working segment spent 17 million nights in total, accounting for 31% of all nights spent caravan and camping.

However, the Caravan Industry Association of Australia did caution that “it is important to note that despite these increases, all figures should continue to be taken with a grain of salt as the impact of TRA’s change in methodology continues to provide inflated figures across domestic tourism which saw growth of 10% by nights and 12% by trips across all accommodation types.”

Image shows BIG4 Wye River Holiday Park, Victoria.