Celebrities help lead the way as Australia welcomes increase in tourists from the US

AUSTRALIA is saying “g’day” to a record number of American tourists after marketing campaigns around high-profile visits by US stars.

AUSTRALIA is saying “g’day” to a record number of American tourists as high-level marketing campaigns featuring top US TV stars and a falling Aussie dollar pay dividends.

The number of US visitors visiting our shores in 2013 was the highest on record, Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show, eclipsing the previous best set during the 2000 Olympics.

Last year, a total of 508,700 Americans visited Australia, up 6.2 per cent for the year.

The tourism industry puts the jump in US travellers to a rebounding American economy, a falling Aussie dollar, and the pay-off from marketing campaigns based around high-profile visits from US TV stars such as Oprah Winfrey in 2010 and Ellen DeGeneres last year.

“The global GFC (global financial crisis) hit the US pretty hard, and inevitably this has had an impact over the past few years on the numbers of Americans travelling Down Under,” Tourism Australia spokesman Leo Seaton said.

“We always knew that the appetite among Americans to travel would return, as the US economy improved and the Aussie dollar came off its highs, and made sure we were well placed to take advantage with strong and high profile campaigns such as Oprah in 2010-11 and last year’s Best Jobs in the World.”

Oprah Winfrey at the sunset viewing area of Uluru during her Australia visit.

Other top US entertainers who have helped shine the tourism spotlight upon Australia in recent years include rockers Benji and Joel Madden, and Leonardo DiCaprio, who filmed Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby Down Under in 2011-12.

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie jetted out of Australia last week after spending several months on a shoot, while the cast of US sitcom Modern Family will arrive next week to shoot local episodes of the hit show in a coup which is sure to provide further exposure for Australian tourism.

Angelina Jolie was joined by Brad Pitt and their children when she filmed in Australia.

Favourite destinations for American travellers included Far North Queensland, the Great Barrier Reef, Sydney and the Gold Coast, while visits to national parks and Australia’s unique wildlife also proved popular.

Staying an average 25 nights, US visitors spent a total of $2.5 billion.

“We haven’t seen growth in our US arrivals like this since the Sydney Olympics, with a strong December capping off a year which saw a record half a million American visitors,” Mr Seaton said.

It comes as the total number of international visitors to Australia last year reached almost 6.5 million.

“That’s 340,000 more international visitors to Australia in 2013 than came in 2012 and with international visitor expenditure averaging almost $2500 per person, that translates to an additional $840 million in spending in the visitor economy,” Tourism & Transport Forum chief executive Ken Morrison said.

The UK continued its Ashes-led bounce in December with a 16.8 per cent increase in visitors.

Other international markets to do well included Malaysia, which was up 31 per cent, Singapore and Hong Kong.

Chinese arrivals grew 2.8 per cent after two months of declines following the introduction of a new Chinese Government tourism law banning some types of organised overseas tours because of concerns travellers were being exploited.