Queensland’s tourism industry bounces back

Queensland's tourism industry has soared to new heights, surpassing pre-pandemic records as international and domestic visitors flood back to the Sunshine State. According to the latest data from Tourism Research Australia, in the year ending March 2024, Queensland welcomed 27 million visitors, injecting $34.1 billion into the state's economy—a staggering $93.2 million per day.

The year also saw a new high in Queensland's overnight visitor expenditure (OVE) with a total of $6.1 billion, an increase of 100.9 per cent recovery compared to 2019.

Two regions reached new international OVE records. They were Brisbane ($3.2bn) and Sunshine Coast ($371.1m). In addition, the Whitsundays ($171.1m), Southern Great Barrier Reef ($92.5m), Fraser Coast ($59.9m) and Outback Queensland ($17.9m) surpassed their respective 2019 international OVE levels.

The international market continued to grow strong with New Zealand, China, the United Kingdom, Japan and the United States of America being the five source markets for overnight visitor expenditure. In addition, Queensland welcomed:

• 95,000 visitors from South Korea
• 72,000 visitors from Canada
• 27,000 visitors from Thailand

Queensland’s domestic market saw 5.7m domestic business visitors contribute a record $5.4bn to the state’s economy in overnight expenditure, putting the valuable business travel market 20.8 per cent higher than 2023, and 36.2 per cent higher than 2019.

These figures not only highlight Queensland's attractiveness as a tourism destination, but also its remarkable resilience. Despite challenges such as severe weather and strong travel experienced in other states for the Taylor Swift Eras Tour, Queensland's tourism industry has shown substantial growth in visitor expenditure across various regions and markets, instilling confidence in its future.

Tourism and Events Queensland CEO Patricia O’Callaghan highlights how Queensland continues to grow as a destination.

“Since COVID-19, it’s been a rollercoaster for Queensland’s tourism sector, as we went from the challenges brought by travel restrictions to the incredible highs of a domestic tourism boom,” Ms O’Callaghan said.

“We’re now entering a new period of normalisation that holds some promising signs in the face of strong headwinds that we know have been building over time. The return of international visitors is sooner than we expected, and the much-anticipated return of business travel is balanced by the challenge of Aussie holidaymakers looking abroad. Others are limited in where they can travel due to rising costs at home.

“We’ll continue to work with the industry to showcase Queensland as a world-class holiday destination, with our recent campaign ‘Queensland is Bluey’s world in real life’ a prime example of that in action. We’ve already sent more than 150,000 leads to industry in the first weeks of the campaign, in what has been our biggest campaign in more than a decade, truly centred around conversion.

“We have a packed calendar of events across all 13 tourism regions and will continue to support operators throughout the state to make Queensland the dominant holiday destination for Australians and international visitors alike.”