Floriade and Unisport Nationals deliver significant boost to ACT 2024 economy

Floriade, Australia’s largest celebration of Spring held in Canberra’s Commonwealth Park from 14th September to 13th October 2024, provided a significant boost to the ACT economy with a total economic impact of $62.4 million, up 22% on 2023.

This includes $48.8 million attributed to visitors to the city. This is the highest visitor economic impact recorded in Floriade’s history.

A total of 470,422 people attended Australia’s Biggest Celebration of Spring, with visitors to Canberra contributing 216,651 (46%) of the total attendance.

Visitor nights also increased by 31%, with 221,866 visitor nights recorded, providing a boost to Canberra’s accommodation industry.

UniSport Nationals, which also took place in September, generated $10.4 million in economic impact to the ACT. A total of 11,603 people attended the event, staying in the city for an average of 5.1 nights.

The event saw over 6,000 participants from 42 universities across the country compete across one of 31 different sports in a bid to become a national champion.

ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr noted “Floriade and other major events like the UniSport Nationals continue to be important drivers for our visitor economy.

“Next year we look forward to more events, including the Lions Tour and Australian Masters Games, further supporting our experience industry.”

The latest National Visitor Survey (ending September 2024) saw a total of 5.23 million visitors to the ACT, generating a total of $3.65 billion in visitor expenditure – a similar result to the same period last year.

Importantly, international spend has increased to $625 million, the highest annual international expenditure since March 2019, and up 50% on the year ending September 2023.

Minister Barr added “International tourism to Canberra is recovering after a difficult few years. This is a positive result and highlights the importance of our international aviation connections to the local economy.

“The result also shows the decision by Qatar to resume daily flights to Canberra will help boost the local economy, providing tourism, trade, investment and a range of business opportunities when flights start back up.

“It will also make an important contribution towards the ACT Government's goal of growing our tourism economy to $5 billion in visitor expenditure by 2030.”