A record number of international visitors took a holiday in Western Australia in 2018, according to the latest International Visitor Survey (IVS) data.
Released by Tourism Research Australia, the data reveals 487,100 international visitors travelled to the State for a holiday – an increase of 12.6 per cent compared to 2017.
Holiday visitor spend was also up by 8.2 per cent and visitor nights increased by four per cent.
This is the highest ever number of international holiday visitors to WA, and the strongest year-on-year growth rate in the nation.
Overall, the number of international visitors to the State increased by 2.1 per cent to 963,800, while spend decreased by 0.5 per cent to $2.2 billion and the number of nights dropped by five per cent to 24.9 million.
From Western Australia’s top 10 markets by number of visitors, the strongest results were from Japan (up 12.6 per cent), India (up 11 per cent) and Germany (up 7.3 per cent), while Indonesia, China and the United Kingdom showed moderate growth. However, the remaining markets in the top 10 (Malaysia, Singapore, the United States of America and New Zealand) saw a drop in visitor numbers.
The State Government recently committed an extra $12 million in the upcoming State Budget, on top of the allocated $45 million annually given to Tourism Western Australia, to market the State and attract holiday-makers from key South East Asian markets including Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Hong Kong, as well as long-haul destinations such as the United Kingdom, Germany and the United States.
Source: WA Government