Top domestic travel destinations 2022
Tourism Research Australia data reveals six surging domestic destinations, among other key insights.
Australians have wasted no time making up for lost travel, with new data showing we’re spending more on domestic trips now than before the pandemic.
Tourism Research Australia’s June quarter 2022 report has revealed $5.7 billion more was spent on domestic travel than the same period in 2019, despite taking fewer trips overall.
Food and drink, petrol, shopping and accommodation were the areas travellers spent big on, with $3.8 billion injected into regional areas.
Vacation hot spots have bounced back significantly post-pandemic, with the NSW Snowy Mountains region experiencing the biggest surge in tourism for June, up by 84 per cent compared to the same month in 2019.
Queensland’s far north regions including the Daintree rainforest, Port Douglas, Mossman and Cape Tribulation area were also popular during this period, with 58,000 more trips taken, followed by Hobart, Margaret River, the Barossa wine region and the Mornington Peninsula.
The data, which coincides with UN World Tourism Day, also looked at international visitor numbers, showing India has become one of Australia’s largest tourist markets for the first time, behind New Zealand.
Australia received 129,000 visitor arrivals from India during the 2021-22 financial year, collectively injecting $1.8 billion into the economy.
The UK, Singapore and the US were also among the top five tourist markets, with more than half of international visitors citing friends and family visitation as the primary reason for their trip.
Trade and Tourism minister Don Farrell said despite the challenges it was “excellent to see our regions doing so well as tourism recovers”.
“The latest data from Tourism Research Australia, released today, shows that our tourism industry continues to bounce back strongly after the impacts of the pandemic,” he said.
“I am committed to doing everything I can to help Australia’s $166 billion tourism industry return to the economic powerhouse we know it to be.”