Bursting at the seams for a great Aussie holiday

The NSW government is ready to roll out a $300 million marketing plan to encourage Aussies to holiday in NSW once COVID restrictions are lifted.

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The NSW government is ready to roll out a $300 million marketing plan to encourage Aussies to holiday in NSW once COVID restrictions are lifted.

Domestic travel is seen as the key to turning around Australia’s tourism economy, which is losing $10 billion a month because of coronavirus shutdowns.

Broughton Island, Myall Lakes National Park, NSW. Picture: Great Lakes Tourism

“I am chomping at the bit to promote NSW,” Tourism minister Stuart Ayres told The Daily Telegraph.

He said there was a $300 million investment pipeline in place to actively encourage people to visit NSW and make it the first choice for domestic visitors once border restrictions are lifted.

“The national tourism sector has been hit a huge blow but it can bounce back if we allow people to move around Australia freely,” he said.

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“We want to encourage people to visit NSW from across the country when border restrictions come down,” he said.

“With international travel restricted over the next 12 to 18 months there has never been a better time to explore regional NSW.”

Aussie tourists took almost 10 million overseas trips last year and spent $65 billion in foreign countries.

Caravan Park Resurrection at South West Rocks. Picture: Nathan Edwards

Dusk at Bermagui, on the NSW south coast NSW. Picture: Istock

Tourism Australia managing director Phillipa Harrison said: “We see a huge opportunity targeting the many Australians who normally take an overseas holiday, but are not able to do so at the moment.

“With domestic travel restrictions clearly set to lift before international restrictions, there is a real opportunity here to redirect a sizeable proportion of these outbound tourism dollars towards our domestic industry,” she said.

Ms Harrison said research showed 60 per cent of Australians were keen to travel domestically after restrictions.

Almost all of the 300,000 tourism businesses around the nation are small businesses.

A kangaroo by a fence at sunset in Bourke, in western NSW. Picture: Dylan Robinson

Originally published as Bursting at the seams for a great Aussie holiday