Domestic tourism market up after poor years
Spending in the billion dollar domestic tourism market is up after two years of decline - but most of the increase is being driven by fuel costs.
Survey of Domestic Travel (year ending June 30):
- $7.1b Total spend - up 4.7 per cent
- 14.3m Overnight trips - down 2.7 per cent
- 29.1m Day trips - down 5.2 per cent
- $2.2b Spent on transport - up 14.9 per cent
The latest domestic travel survey by the Ministry of Tourism showed that domestic visitors spent $7.1 billion in the year ending June 30 - a jump of 4.7 per cent after falling the two previous years by 11 per cent and 8 per cent respectively.
Ministry of Tourism research manager Bruce Bassett said much of the increase in spending could be attributed to a 15 per cent increase in transport expenditure to $2.2 billion, partly because of higher fuel costs.
However, the spending increase was encouraging, Bassett said.
"A substantial proportion of this increase has been driven by holiday travellers rather than those on business or visiting friends and family."
Spending by people on holiday was up 15 per cent on the previous year at $2.8 billion. However, the total number of trips - both overnight and day - was down 4.4 per cent at 43.4 million.
Tourism Industry Association chief executive Fiona Luhrs said the increase in spending was good news "but if the number of trips are down overall then one presumes that we're still getting the effect of people going overseas for holidays" on cheap airfares to Australia and the Pacific.
By Owen Hembry
