Noosa’s tourism market has recorded the strongest visitor results since the start of the pandemic.
Tourism Research Australia’s National Visitor Survey, for the year ending June 2021, showed the region welcomed more than 1 million domestic overnight visitors.
That was a 2.2% increase on the pre-COVID 2019 year, and they spent $967 million, an increase of 8.2% over 2019.
Tourism Noosa CEO Melanie Anderson said the figures were the strongest for domestic overnight visitation since the start of the pandemic.
“Some of the measures even broke pre-COVID records,” Ms Anderson said.
“While this is great news for the hundreds of businesses that have been working tirelessly to keep afloat through the constantly changing COVID conditions, we’re aware that the past few months have been very tough with the prolonged interstate border closures.”
A record 769,000 Queenslanders visited Noosa, a 27% increase compared to 2019.
They spent a record $584 million, almost double their spend in 2020 and 51% higher than in 2019.
“While COVID restrictions continued to disrupt the tourism industry, we continually monitored consumer sentiment and ensured our marketing campaigns were flexible enough to quickly hit the available markets, and this has paid off,” Ms Anderson said.
“With the closure of interstate borders, Queenslanders answered our call and this really helped compensate for the loss of traditionally strong interstate visitors.”
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While interstate visitor numbers fell 36% to 250,000, and spend fell 24% to $383.5 million, their spend per person increased to $1533 and remains more than double the average Queenslander spend of $760.
The overnight results for Noosa were in line with results for the Sunshine Coast and were stronger than those across Queensland and Australia.
“The biggest increase came from holiday visitors, rather than those visiting friends and relatives, which was good news for our accommodation industry,” Ms Anderson said.
Total spend for the region, including day trippers, reached $1.06 billion, the highest since March 2020.
Total visitation and spend however remained below the 2019 levels (visitors are 23% down at 1.9 million and spend is 3% down), due to the continued loss of international markets, which previously contributed about 10% of the total visitor spend.
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Ms Anderson said Tourism Noosa’s Noosa Travel Insights hub, a new reporting method that complements Tourism Research Australia’s quarterly National Visitor Surveys, had added depth to visitor and accommodation statistics.
“The measures during the 12 months to June 2021, which was a full year of COVID restrictions, were strong compared to the previous year,” she said.
“The average occupancy throughout the year was 59%, compared to 53% the previous year, which obviously includes some months of lockdown and other months where we reached strong capacity.
“The average length of stay for visitors increased from 2.75 days to 4.4 days, which is a great sign that people are out and about spending in the region.
“Importantly for accommodation owners, the average daily rate increased from $212 to $251.”
