NT shows first signs of tourism recovery
Overseas trips are out and holidays over the border are risky because of closures, but new data reveals the first green shoots of recovery for the Territory’s tourism industry.
Northern Territory
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Territorians are starting to look at their own backyard for holiday options, new data shows.
A new Road Trip Index generated by data from travellers using TripTech apps highlight a spike in leisure traveller movement around the Greater Darwin area of more than 18 per cent for the week beginning July 20.
This put the region in the national top 10 for leisure activity for the week.
The data comes from a suite of 14 TripTech apps produced for car hire companies, accommodation providers and RV hire companies and includes CamperMate, which has over two million downloads.
TripTech CEO Nick Baker said the Road Travel Index showed Australians who are returning to travel were showing a clear preference for doing so by road.
“The road trip is not just back in vogue, but it could be here to stay and become entrenched as the primary and most popular means of tourist and leisure travel within and across Australia,” he said.
Caravan Industry Association CEO Stuart Lamont said there had been a “resurgence of activity towards caravanning and camping roadtrips” in the NT since mid-May, with increases in park occupancy, as well as more enquiries at dealerships.
Cabins had 52 per cent occupancy during the week commencing July 20, while powered sites were at 19 per cent occupancy, a rate that was more than double that of two months prior, Mr Lamont said.
Australian Tourism Industry Council executive director Simon Westaway told News Corp that although the Territory was “heavily reliant on the interstate market, and to some degree international travellers” moves to stimulate locals travelling were starting to make a difference.
And while talk had raced ahead to discussion of trans-Tasman bubbles, Mr Westaway said the reality was that intrastate and some interstate travel was all that was available right now.
“It’s human nature to be optimistic, but some of the optimism around the reopening of the travel market, both domestically and internationally, has needed to be parked, and we need to be a bit more realistic about where things are at,” he said.
The national data shows that Queenslanders have taken to the road trip holiday with particular gusto: seven of the top 10 holiday traffic growth areas in the country are in the Sunshine State.
But the data also shows how badly Australia’s tourism regions have been hit, with holiday traffic to the Gold Coast down 50 per cent on the same time last year, and the Flinders Ranges in South Australia down 52.8 per cent.
Originally published as NT shows first signs of tourism recovery