Record number of international holiday visitors to WA

Released by Tourism Research Australia, the data reveals 493,100 international visitors travelled to WA for a holiday, an increase of 9.3 per cent compared to the previous year.

This is the highest ever number of international holiday visitors to WA and the strongest year-on-year growth rate of all Australian states and territories.

Holiday visitor spend also reached a record high for year ending Mar 2019, growing 14.8 per cent from the previous year to $801 million.

Average daily spend in WA from international visitors was the highest on record, both at a total level and for holiday purposes. However, the number of international visitors for all purposes of visitation to the State decreased slightly by 1.2 per cent to 949,000, and overall spend decreased by 1.7 per cent to $2.16 billion.

Growth in holiday and business nights were unable to offset declines across all other purposes of visit, with the number of international visitor nights dropping by 10.7 per cent to 23.7 million.

Some of these declines can be explained by a drop in visiting friends and relatives. As a result, Tourism WA is working in key markets to address this and other visitor segments through targeted marketing campaigns.

Tourism Minister Paul Papalia said: "The latest international visitor statistics are very encouraging, especially for the holiday sector.

This is the second quarter in a row where WA has broken holiday visitor numbers, both within the State and nationally.

While these results are positive, there is still work to do in other visitor segments, such as visiting friends and relatives, and working holiday makers."

Image Credit: facebook.com/ExtraordinaryWesternAustralia