International visits to Australia reach record high

Australia's world-class tourism industry has experienced a record-breaking year with significant increases in international visitor arrivals and tourism expenditure.

The newly released Tourism Research Australia (TRA) State of the Industry 2015 report shows inbound arrivals increasing by 6.6% to a record 6.6 million arrivals in 2014/15.

Arrivals from New Zealand lead the way with 1.2 million inbound tourists. However, both China (up 21.7% to 864,000 visitors) and India (up 19.9% to 207,000) continue to drive growth in inbound arrivals.

International tourism expenditure also reached a new high of $33.4 billion in 2014/15 following growth of 10% which is the strongest expenditure recorded for a financial year since the Sydney Olympic Games.

The figures also shows Australia's domestic tourism is thriving - 83.2 million overnight trips were recorded last financial year which is the highest on record.

Overnight visitor expenditure increased 4% to a total of $55.4 billion and total overnight expenditure increased 6.3% to $88.8 billion.

Overall, the total value of the tourism investment pipeline increased by a net $4.3 billion to $53.7 billion in 2014.

Commenting on the report, Federal Minister for Tourism and International Education Richard Colbeck said the report gives a positive overview of Australia's tourism industry and provides industry with increased confidence in the future.

Senator Colbeck stated "since the Government identified Tourism as one the five National Investment Priorities, we have facilitated increased tourism infrastructure investment, built focused international marketing and embarked on visa reforms to make it easier for international tourists to come to Australia.

"This report provides further evidence that we are on track to reach the 2020 target of increasing overnight expenditure to between $115 billion and $140 billion by the year 2020.”

Recent reports have also supported these positive results, including TRA's Tourism Forecasts 2015, which indicated strong growth over the next decade, and the Australian Tourism Labour Force Report 2015-2020 which identified opportunity for increasing employment in the sector.

The Australian Tourism Labour Force Report found that an additional 123,000 workers, including 60,000 skilled workers, will be needed to meet visitor demand by 2020.

Senator Colbeck and Austraian Minister for Trade and Investment Andrew Robb have also announced new appointments to Tourism Australia’s Board of Directors.

Hayley Baillie, Kate Vale and Francis Wong have joined the Tourism Australia Board for a period of three years while Director Brett Godfrey will step into the Deputy Chair position.

To view Tourism Research Australia’s State of the Industry 2015 report go to www.tra.gov.au

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