NEW research shows foreign business visitors to WA increased more than 20 per cent in the year to March, with China forecast to drive international tourism.
International overnight visitor results from Tourism Research Australia’s latest International Visitor Survey, released today, showed an overall increase of 2.6 per cent to 706,600 visitors to WA in the 12 months to March.
The rise in the March quarter alone was 9 per cent.
According to the survey, the number of business visitors to WA in the year ending March 2011 rose by 23.3 per cent, with holiday visits up by 2.3 per cent and visits for the purpose of education increasing 2.5 per cent.
Tourism Minister Kim Hames said WA’s buoyant resource and corporate sector was quite clearly luring more and more people to the state.
“Business visitors currently make up 16.4 per cent of all international visitors, up from 13.6 per cent in the year ending December 2010,” Dr Hames said.
More than 33,000 business travellers visited WA from overseas in the December 2010 quarter, up 42 per cent on the December quarter 2009.
Federal Minister for Tourism Martin Ferguson previously said business travellers presented an enormous opportunity for Western Australia’s tourism industry.
“Markets such as China are growing very strongly, with Western Australia’s national share of the Chinese market increasing by 109 per cent in 2010 compared with the previous year,” Mr Ferguson said.
Dr Hames said Tourism WA was developing strategies to increase the contribution of business travel to WA’s visitor economy.
“These include building the meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions (MICE) sector; positioning WA as a holiday destination to business visitors by encouraging them to extend their visit or to come back to holiday with their families; and creating events and experiences alongside conventions and conferences,” Dr Hames added.
In terms of international markets the most significant growth in visitors came from China with 15,200 arriving in WA (up a whopping 36 per cent), followed by Indonesia with 28,900 visitors (growing by an impressive 27.5 per cent) and then the USA with 45,400 (up 19.9 per cent).
“In the March quarter for 2011 visitors from the USA rose by a very healthy 53 per cent, and some of that growth will undoubtedly be a result of the WA promotion on The Oprah Winfrey Show in November 2010 and the extensive marketing Tourism WA has conducted in the US in conjunction with Oprah’s Great Australian Adventure,” Dr Hames said.
“China continues to show enormous potential, which we hope to tap into even further once direct flights to Perth are established and Tourism WA launches its new China marketing strategy.”
As reported previously by PerthNow, Asia’s biggest airline, China Southern Airlines signed a co-operative agreement last month which will give WA direct access to the world’s biggest tourism market for the first time, widely expected by industry to launch before November.
It's understood that representatives from Tourism WA are currently in China conducting meetings with China Southern Airlines officials and other tourism firms amid wide-ranging trade and consumer marketing efforts to ensure WA is top of mind in China.
The survey estimated 15,000 Chinese visitors came to WA in the 12 months to March, up from the 12,000 estimated to have headed to the state in 2010, which was an increase of 32.1 per cent from 2009.
They spent $80 million in WA in 2010, an increase of 135.3 per cent from $34 million spent in 2009.
However Tourism Council WA chief executive Evan Hall said today’s results were just the tip of the iceberg.
“With China Southern Airlines starting direct flights to Perth by November, we expect Chinese visitors to double over the next year,” he said.
But Mr Hall again questioned if WA was ready for an influx of Chinese tourists - a perennial issue for the industry with key tourism players often raising concerns about the lack of on-the-ground support for the burgeoning market, such as the level of Chinese speaking tourism sector employees or translated tourism guides available in Perth.
“If they don’t have a good experience they will stop coming,” Mr Hall said.
“We need a whole-of-government approach to get Western Australian tourism “China Ready”.”
TCWA also warned that not all regions were benefiting from international visitors.
“Hotels in Perth and mining regions are full of international business travellers, but holiday destinations are not seeing as much of the international visitor dollar” Mr Hall said.
“We must improve air, bus and passenger transport from Perth to holiday destinations to help get international visitors out into the regions.”
According to the national Tourism Forecasting Council’s first issue for 2011, released at the end of last week, Asia is expected to continue to lead the growth in inbound arrivals to Australia in the short and longer terms, reflecting the stronger economic performance of the region.
“For 2011, there has been an upward revision for arrivals from China (from 21.9 per cent to 25.8 per cent) and Indonesia (from 6.8 per cent to 13.1 per cent), as aviation capacity continues to increase,” the Forecast said.
“The outlook for international travel to Australia looks more optimistic for 2012 than is the case this year.
"The majority of growth in total tourism consumption is expected to come from stronger international visitation."
Japan is one exception to the mainly strong growth expected from Asia this year in the wake of the recent natural disaster, with visitor arrivals substantially downgraded to 293,000 in 2011.
Meanwhile, in Singapore today, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said the global airline industry is expected to post a post-tax profit of $US4 billion ($A3.73 billion) in calendar 2011, less than half its previous forecast of $US8.6 billion ($A8.01 billion) in March.
The IATA said this was because of the effect of political unrest, natural disasters and high fuel prices.
Eventscorp today launched its 2012 events calendar, featuring a record 84 events including Australia's richest golf tournament.
