Victoria hits $35b tourism spend 15 months ahead of target date

Business, corporate and incentive events in Melbourne. Skyline.

Victoria has achieved record performance in total tourism spend to end-March 2023, hitting ambitious targets that were set for end-June 2024.

According to latest National Visitor Survey/International Visitor Survey data released today by Tourism Research Australia, total tourism spend in Victoria has hit $35 billion, 15 months ahead of targets set for the industry in the Visitor Economy Recovery and Reform Plan.

Victoria Tourism Industry Council CEO, Felicia Mariani, said this was a remarkable achievement by an industry that was decimated over the past two years and is illustrative of the enormous effort, commitment, and dedication of the industry to be relentless in its pursuit to recover lost ground.

“These results to end-March 2023 are nothing short of remarkable when we consider that to end-March 2021, total tourism spend fell to its lowest point in the pandemic at $9.8 billion,” she said.

“At that stage, we predicted that getting back to spend levels at the start of 2020, being $32.5 billion, would take a minimum of three years to achieve as the most optimistic outcome we could hope for. Clearly, we’ve hit that goal – and then some – within two years.”

While total tourism spend has skyrocketed in recent months, there remain some underperformers in the mix, which includes total visitor spend from international markets.

Victoria is sitting at $4.2 billion in international visitor spend to end-March 2023, which is roughly half of pre-pandemic levels.

“This is a by-product of the pace at which aviation capacity and frequency has returned, resulting in the high airfares we’re seeing to travel to Australia,” said Mariani.

“From this week, with the return of seven of the eight Chinese carriers to Melbourne within a very short time following their recent re-opening, and many international carriers returning to full schedules of dailies and double dailies to our destination, this outlook should improve.

“As of June 2023, Melbourne Airport has now re-attracted 92 per cent of the international seat capacity, when compared with performance in June 2019. Furthermore, this is expected to increase to 98 per cent by the end of the September quarter.”

QANTAS aircraft at Tullamarine Airport (iStock/DLMcK)

One of the primary beneficiaries of the significant increase in visitor spend has been regional areas of the state, and this has been particularly true for Phillip Island, High Country, and the Grampians.

“With the confinement of lockdowns and restrictions so many of us were subjected to, the attractiveness of travelling in our own backyard quickly grew in appeal, and that habit has thankfully continued,” Mariani said.

“Every single region of the state is performing well ahead of 2019 levels, but three regions are leading that charge with Phillip Island up 75 per cent, High Country up 73 per cent, and Grampians up 66 per cent.

“The icing on the cake in all of this has been the meteoric rise from the ashes that Melbourne has experienced.

“Last week, our capital city emerged in the top three of the World’s Most Liveable Cities, and now, Melbourne has retained its position as the country’s number one interstate overnight leisure destination, with 3.6 million visitors staying 14.6 million nights and injecting $5.1 billion into our state’s economy,” Mariani concluded.

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