Andrew Barr is celebrating Canberra’s 2010 tourism numbers:
The survey by Tourism Research Australia revealed Canberra as the stand-out performer in 2010, when compared to the year ending December 2009:
· domestic overnight visitors totalled 2.06 million, up by 336,000 or 19%.· domestic visitor nights totalled 5.57 million, up by 925,000 or 20%.
· domestic overnight visitor expenditure totalled $1.09 billion, up $303 million.
· domestic overnight holiday/leisure visitors totalled 761,000 (the highest number recorded since the establishment of the NVS in 1998), up 43%.
· domestic overnight visitors coming for the purpose of visiting friends/relatives and for business rose by 5% and 10% respectively.
· domestic holiday/leisure visitor nights totalled 1.8 million, up 22%; and
· domestic daytrip visitors totalled 1.62 million, up 10%.
One wonders at what point the taxpayer can stop subsidising this industry’s marketing costs?