Forecast looks bright for Australian Tourism

Australia wooden sign with winery background

The 2016 forecast is looking bright and sunny for Australia’s tourism industry following Tourism Research Australia (TRA) annual report.

According to the report, by 2019–2020, total overnight expenditure will reach $127 billion in nominal terms (or $115.8 billion in real terms). This will place the industry in the middle range of the target industry potential set under Tourism 2020, Australia’s national tourism strategy (overnight visitor expenditure to be between $115 and $140 billion by 2020, in nominal terms).

Tourism Australia managing director, John O’Sullivan said “with both international and domestic tourism spending being forecast upwards, the progress we are making towards the industry’s Tourism 2020 targets is clearly accelerating. With visitor numbers and spending at record levels, there’s a lot of optimism around the industry at the moment, which seems to be borne out in this latest forecast.”

Domestic Tourism

Despite considerable global economic and political uncertainty, improving economic growth, lower interest rates, lower fuel prices and the lower Australian dollar sees domestic tourism forecast to improve solidly in the next few years.

Visitor nights are expected to increase 4.5 per cent in 2015–16 and to average 3.1 per cent over the ten years to 2024– 25.
Strong growth will occur in holiday travel, with many Australians choosing to holiday at home rather than travel abroad.
Growth in domestic day trips is expected to be stronger again, with 9.7 per cent growth in 2015–16 and another 4.5 per cent in 2016–17.
With the increasing trips comes increasing expenditure, with a forecast 5.0 per cent increase in domestic tourism expenditure to $78.4 billion in 2015–16 and a ten-year average growth rate of 2.9 per cent per annum.

Inbound Tourism

The inbound tourism market is also forecast to continue leading growth, supported by lower fuel prices, a lower Australian dollar, increased aviation capacity and the improvement of economic conditions in overseas markets. This will see the inbound share of total tourism spend increasing from 31 per cent in 2014–15 to 41 per cent in 2024–25, firmly cementing tourism as one of Australia’s largest export earners.

In terms of market share, Asian markets are expected to continue driving growth in the next few years led by China (up 18.5 per cent in 2016–17 and 13.3 per cent in 2017–18) and India (up 9.4 per cent and 9.7 per cent respectively).

Despite a slowing of the transitioning Chinese economy, the strong visitor growth coming out of China is expected to see China become our largest inbound source market earlier than previously forecast, overtaking New Zealand in 2017–18. Screen Shot 2016-07-15 at 10.37.17 am

Source: Tourism Research Australia

Indonesia, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea are also expected to experience solid growth, as are our traditional markets of New Zealand and the USA.

The rising middle class (the travelling class) in the Asia-Pacific, increasing connectivity and an aging demographic will see people travelling, for longer and spending more. This makes for a positive outlook for Australia’s tourism industry, which augers well for the thousands of tourism businesses across Australia – leading to increasing employment levels and an increased contribution to GDP growth.

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