Thursday, 15 March 2018
NORTHERN Tablelands residents are reaping the benefits of the State’s tourism boom with the New England North West region receiving a significant increase in visitation over the last twelve months according to the latest International Visitor Survey from Tourism Research Australia.
Member for Northern Tablelands and Minister for Tourism and Major Events Adam Marshall said the results demonstrated the NSW Government’s tourism and major events strategies were delivering results for region’s local business and tourism operators.
“The New England North West region has been making a fantastic contribution to the State’s visitor economy with 42,700 international visitors which is an increase in visitation of 21.2 per cent,” Mr Marshall.
“Our region is as attractive as ever especially for people to visit their friends and relatives as well as a growing number of international visitor nights which grew by 12.6 per cent.
“The high performance of the our region comes off the back of rural and regional NSW has achieving its highest number of overseas visitors on record with visitor numbers growing by 11 per cent and their dollar spend grew by 19 per cent compared to the previous year.
“While the State is absolutely smashing records in the tourism industry, we won’t be complacent, I’m committed to boosting these numbers even further and continuing to break records for our State and ensure the Northern Tablelands continues to play its part in this fantastic period for tourism.”
New England North West is Regional NSW’s sixth top region for international visitors and 4th for visitor nights.
The region accounted for 5.0 per cent of visitors, 6.9 per cent of visitor nights and 5.4 per cent of expenditure in Regional NSW for YE December 2017.
New England North West is the 41st ranked region in Australia in terms of international visitors, and the 24th ranked region in Australia in terms of visitor nights in YE December 2017.