Professional service firm, Deloitte, has released its twice annual Tourism and Hotel Market Outlook report, containing key developments across the Australian tourism and hospitality sectors and projections on both domestic and international tourism over the next three years.
According to Deloitte Access Economics’ detailed report, improved conditions in the US and UK have contributed to the strongest growth in international arrivals to Australia in nine years, reporting an 8.2 per cent visitation increase in the year ending May 2014, while both domestic and international visitor nights grew slightly, showing a preference for shorter trips.
While growth in domestic overnight travel continued to grow, reporting a 4.0 per cent increase, the majority of this was driven by business travel as opposed to leisure as seen in previous quarters, with business travel seeing a 6.3 per cent increase.
However, while domestic travel didn’t see the momentum it experienced mid-2013, Australians’ love of overseas leisure travel combined with the resilience of the Aussie dollar contributed to a growth of nearly eight per cent in international holiday travel.
Domestic tourism experienced its biggest growth in Western Australia while Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales led the way in international visitation.
Overall international visitor arrivals grew by 8.2 per cent led by a 9.4 per cent increase in leisure travel, while both leisure and overall travel recorded its fastest growth in nearly a decade.
This unprecedented growth was driven by arrivals from Asia, with Chinese travellers leading the way at a growth of 11.9 per cent, while an increase in low-cost carrier capacity saw numbers in leisure travellers from Malaysia and Singapore surge by 20.4 per cent and 16.0 per cent respectively.
Meanwhile, visitors from the US grew 9.1 per cent, its fastest yearly growth since March 2010, while UK arrivals showed a major turnaround with an 11.9 per cent increase, after having dropped by nearly 20 per cent over the previous six years.
According to the report, Deloitte forecasts international arrivals will grow by 5.1 per cent and international visitor nights by 5.2 per cent over the next three years, as the Aussie dollar eases and economic growth in key markets continues to improve and stabilise, while domestic travel is expected to grow by an average of two per cent per year, with leisure travel increasing.
– ETB News