It’s that time again when we find out just how much the world loves Australia.

Minister for Trade and Investment Andrew Robb is feeling pretty stoked with the results of the latest International Visitor Survey today.

And pop the champers cause it’s a cracker – visitor spend grew by 10% to a record $33.4 billion, which is $3.2 billion bigger than last year.

This is the strongest yearly growth since 2001, the period of the Sydney Olympic Games.

“Today’s result once again demonstrates that tourism is one of our great strengths,” Robb said.

“Tourism can be our fastest growing sector this decade if we continue to leverage our ‘clean, green and safe’ brand to position ourselves as the number one, long-haul destination in Asia.”

Breaking down the stats, we can see who Australia’s biggest fans are:

China remains king

China remained the dominant source of growth with a 22% increase in visitor numbers (864,000) and a 32% increase in expenditure. Chinese tourists are now worth a pretty hefty $7 billion to the Australian economy.

“With China now accounting for one in every five dollars spent by international visitors, it is clear that China is vital to the sustained growth of our tourism sector,” Robb said.

“That is why the Government has announced a 10 year multiple-entry visitor visa for China, and earlier this year struck a landmark aviation deal that will triple air capacity to 67,000 seats per week, between Australia and China by the end of 2016.”

Food and wine a tasty fave

And with one in five tourism dollars now being spent by international visitors on food and wine, it seems Aussies are luring in the foodies.

Tourism Australia’s managing director, John O’Sullivan, said that a significant increase in food and wine expenditure had made a big contribution to Australia’s record-breaking international spending figures.

The Restaurant Australia campaign involved a two-year target to grow international food and wine spending by more than $500 million by the end of 2015, which was achieved well in advance.

“Drawing attention to the people, produce and places that lie behind our country’s exceptional food and wine experiences has been a major focus of Tourism Australia’s global marketing activities for the past 18 months,” he said.

“And, pleasingly, we’re seeing the benefits of this work clearly reflected in these latest tourism figures.

Indians follow the cricket

No doubt cricket fans will vouch for a boost in Indian tourists, who become one of the fastest growing markets with expenditure reaching a record $1 billion for the first time after Australia hosted the ICC Cricket World Cup earlier this year.

India is now our eighth largest tourism market, up from eleventh the previous year.

US + NZ bring the goods

Record growth in visitors was also achieved by the US market, up 9% to 544,000 arrivals, and New Zealand was up 3% to 1.2 million arrivals.

Western Australia missing out

The data has shown that Western Australia is missing out on massive growth in international tourist visitor spend, increasing only 1.2% compared to national average growth of 11.5% and holding back the creation of thousands of tourism and hospitality jobs.

“WA tourism is being held back by low level State Government funding and too much focus by the national Tourism Australia on bringing tourists to the east coast,” Australia Hotels Association (WA) CEO, Bradley Woods said.

“The problem is that other State Governments’ spend on tourism marketing is substantially higher than WA and it keeps growing.”

Sunny coast wins hearts of UK

The Sunshine Coast continued its double digit international visitor growth with a 10.6% increase in overseas arrivals, fuelled by Sunshine Coast Destination Ltd (SCDL) promotions in northern Europe and New Zealand.

The strong growth in international arrivals saw the Sunshine Coast attract 257,000 visitors for the year till 30 June 2015.

The UK (up 23.7% to 59,000) took over as the Sunshine Coast’s international source market, followed closely by New Zealand (58,000), with Germany (30.6%) once again producing the highest growth figures.

Tasmania a surprise winner

Based on state increases in international visitor spend, Tasmania and the Northern Territory saw the biggest jump.

1. TAS +24.41%
2. NT +21.35%
3. QLD +15.88%
4. VIC +14.62%
5. NSW +10.48%
6. SA +  5.85%
7. WA +  1.22%

Image: Sunshine Coast Destination Ltd – Mooloolaba