Statement by ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr:
The ACT has again attracted record numbers of international visitors, with 207,859 overseas travellers visiting the capital for the year ending December 2016.
These are great results, which reflect the Government’s efforts to be more internationally engaged. Our local tourism industry supports the ACT’s strong economy by employing over 16,000 Canberrans.
It is also great to see visitors from Singapore increase by 73.5 per cent in 2016 after Singapore Airlines began regular flights between Canberra and Singapore.
Figures released in Tourism Research Australia’s International Visitor Survey show that Canberra’s international visitor numbers increased by 6.5 per cent on 2015’s results. Growth across the holiday and visiting friends and relatives sectors contributed to this increase.
International visitor expenditure also grew to new record of $452.2 million, representing an increase of 14.7 per cent – well above the national average of 7.0 per cent.
China remains the ACT’s largest international visitor market, representing 19.7 per cent of all international visitors to the ACT, followed by the United Kingdom, United States of America, New Zealand and Singapore.
We look forward to seeing further positive results as we work towards growing the ACT’s overnight visitor expenditure to $2.5 billion by 2020.
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