Spending big at home …

NEW South Wales was the top spot for Aussie travellers holidaying on home soil in 2015.

The state that’s home to the Sydney Opera House, Hunter Valley and Blue Mountains (Below) welcomed 28.1 million domestic travellers last year – that number was a 4.4 per cent increase on 2014 – with local tourists combining to stay 91.1 million nights and spend $16.1 billion.

But it wasn’t just NSW that proved popular with the National Visitor Survey, released today by Tourism Research Australia, confirmed 87.1 million overnights trips and 322 million visitor nights were made by domestic travellers right around the country in the 12 months to December 2015.

In monetary terms that meant stay-at-home tourist injected $57.9 billion into the Australian economy.

“This is another fantastic result for Australia’s domestic visitor economy and just goes to show that the Australian love affair with seeing and experiencing the delights of our own island nation is only growing,” said Tourism & Transport Forum Australia CEO Margy Osmond.

“NSW continues to lead the charge with $16.1 billion in overnight visitor expenditure followed closely by Queensland at $14.5 billion and Victoria at $12.1 billion.

“The ACT at 25 per cent and Tasmania at 20 per cent have seen double-digit growth in overnight visitor expenditure in the past 12 months, a great result for these two markets that highlights the value of investing in the visitor economy.”

Western Australia took $6.7 billion, South Australia $3.5 billion and the Northern Territory $1.5 billion with at least 6 per cent growth in visitor expenditure over the past year.

“Together with the strong performance in Australia’s international visitor market total overnight visitor expenditure reached a record $94.5 billion meaning our nation’s visitor economy is well-positioned to be a job and economic growth generator for years to come,” The TTFA boss said.

“The figures emphasise why government should back the visitor economy as one of the pillars of Australia’s future economy.

“A strong partnership between government and industry is the approach we need to take the visitor economy to the next level, by encouraging more Australians to explore their homeland and attracting more international visitors to our shores through cutting the cost of visas and improving the visitor experience.”