The Liberal Government is committed to building on our competitive strengths, especially tourism.
We have a target of attracting more than 1.5 million visitors to our state every year by 2020, which the industry says will create 8,000 new jobs.
Today I’m pleased to report the latest Tasmanian Visitor Survey (TVS) for the year ending June 2014 shows we are on track to achieving our target.
For the year, there were 1,057,900 million visitors to Tasmania, up 10 per cent from 961,600 the previous year.
Equally important as the number of visitors is the fact there has been 12 per cent growth in total visitor nights, to 9.44 million.
And while we have more visitors, they are also staying for longer and spending more. The survey shows expenditure increased by 18 per cent to $1.727 billion.
Our key markets continue to be Victoria, NSW and Queensland.
International visitors were up 4 per cent to 162,300, with visitors from China up 61 per cent, the USA up 11 per cent, New Zealand up 3 per cent and Hong Kong up 1 per cent. Visitors from the United Kingdom were slightly down by 4 per cent.
Tourism is worth $2.4 billion to the Tasmanian economy each year, and directly and indirectly employs 40,000 Tasmanians.
We are investing an additional $16 million into tourism marketing over four years, we have created a new results-focused Tourism Tasmania by separating it from the bureaucracy, and we are saying “yes” to tourism developments through our Expressions of Interest in the World Heritage Area and National Parks.
Will Hodgman, Premier Minister for Tourism, Hospitality and Events
