Canberra visitor expenditure highest in 25 years as domestic tourism booms post-COVID

Survey data revealed the ACT recorded $3.33 billion in visitor expenditure during the 12-month period, beating the previous benchmark by $300 million in the year ending December 2022.

Altogether, a total of 5.57 million people visited the ACT during the time. Of those, 5.4 million were travelling domestically, while the remaining 130,000 were international visitors.

Domestic visitation over the period was 99 per cent of where it measured pre-COVID, while international numbers were only at 48 per cent.

The data is compared to numbers from the year to December 2019.

Chief Minister Andrew Barr said the data shows Canberra as "a destination of choice".

"Canberra experienced the highest growth in domestic overnight visitation, overnight stays and expenditure of all Australian states and territories during the 12-month period," he said.

"Our international visitation is also set to increase with Fiji Airways due to start their direct service from Canberra this month which will open up the north American market.

"The government will continue to invest in initiatives that attract visitors and improve our destination appeal.

"This includes continuing our investment in the Aviation Stimulus Fund to attract more direct domestic and international flights to and from Canberra, extending the successful Tourism Product Development Fund for another year and supporting our year-round destination marketing."

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The option to fly from Canberra to Fiji will likely be mutually beneficial, giving international travellers from the other side of the world an easy way to get to the capital.

The data also revealed expenditure and numbers of domestic holiday-makers and people visiting family and relatives were higher than they were prior to the pandemic.

On the other hand, visitations for business purposes remain lower in numbers, but higher in expenditure.

In the year ending December 2019, the number of visitors to Canberra for business purposes was 1.061 million, while expenditure reached $597 million. In the year ending March 2023, business-related visitor numbers were just 914 million, but expenditure reached a higher $652 million.

Mr Barr said the expenditure results from the survey bode well for the future.

"This demonstrates we are on track to reach our target of $4 billion in expenditure [annually] by 2030 [the] ACT Tourism Strategy 2023-2030," he said.

The ACT government invested $5 million into tourism as part of the 2023/24 budget to further boost tourism and travel growth after the pandemic.

Part of that includes aiming to get more domestic and international flights into the ACT.

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