{"id":19583,"date":"2014-09-11T05:46:00","date_gmt":"2014-09-11T05:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/sunshine-coast-leads-the-way-for-visitor-growth-in-southern-queensland\/"},"modified":"2014-09-11T05:46:00","modified_gmt":"2014-09-11T05:46:00","slug":"sunshine-coast-leads-the-way-for-visitor-growth-in-southern-queensland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/2014\/09\/sunshine-coast-leads-the-way-for-visitor-growth-in-southern-queensland\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunshine Coast leads the way for visitor growth in southern Queensland"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">The Sunshine Coast was one of only four regions in Queensland to increase visitor numbers in 2013-14, according to statistics released today by Tourism Research Australia.<\/span><\/span><br \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Maleny Botanic gardens with view of Glasshouse Mts 3\" class=\"alignright  wp-image-506054\" data-mce-selected=\"1\" data-mce-src=\"http:\/\/www.eglobaltravelmedia.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Maleny-Botanic-gardens-with-view-of-Glasshouse-Mts-3.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.eglobaltravelmedia.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Maleny-Botanic-gardens-with-view-of-Glasshouse-Mts-3.jpg\" data-wp-imgselect=\"1\" height=\"192\" style=\"background-color: white; color: #333333; float: right; line-height: 19px; outline: rgb(119, 119, 119) solid 1px; resize: none;\" width=\"288\" \/><\/p>\n<div><span style=\"background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\"><br \/><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">The National Visitor Survey statistics showed that Sunshine Coast visitation grew by 4.6% in the year ending June 30, 2014. This was the largest increase in southern Queensland, and only the Townsville and Whitsundays tourist regions (in Queensland) exceeded the Sunshine Coast performance. The only other Queensland region to increase visitor numbers was Brisbane, which grew by 1%.<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">The 4.6% increase in Sunshine Coast visitors grew the total number of visitors to the region to 2.8 million for the 2013-14 financial year.<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">Best performing markets to the Sunshine Coast included:<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">&#8211;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The business and business eventsconference sector grew 40% compared to 2012-13;<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">&#8211;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Brisbane visitors numbers grew 13.9%, and intrastate visitation also showed substantial gains, reversing the trend from the previous year;<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">&#8211;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Sydney was the stand-out performer for interstate source markets, up 3.4%.<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">The National Visitor Survey figures followed equally positive International Visitor Survey numbers released last week. Those figures showed a 1.8% increase in international arrivals, 8% growth in overall visitor nights and a substantial increase of 23.1% in international visitor expenditure to $214.5 million for the 2013-14 year compared 2012-13.<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">Commenting on the figures, Sunshine Coast Destination Ltd (SCDL) CEO, Simon Ambrose, said that the increases in domestic visitation were even more impressive as they were achieved without vast investment in advertising campaigns.<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">\u201cOver the past year there has been a complete regeneration of Sunshine Coast Destination, with every area reviewed, revised and upgraded, and the results are now becoming apparent,\u201d said Mr Ambrose.<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">\u201cWe have quality product available throughout the region, and the Australian travelling public is increasingly appreciating that we are not a \u2018mono\u2019 destination that relies solely on beaches. Our strategy of diversity is being reflected by the broad range of events held on an almost weekly basis. These include events such as the Real Food Festival, the HinterLand Arts Festival and sporting events such as the&nbsp;IRONMAN 70.3 Sunshine Coast&nbsp;and Blackall 100, which will be one of the most remarkable running events staged in Australia.<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">\u201cThe diversity, quality and convenience of our location has also rejuvenated the business events sector, with the region attracting more conferences, incentives and special events in 2013-14 than in the previous year.<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">\u201cThe turnaround in Sunshine Coast tourism\u2019s fortunes is a reflection of the hard work and professionalism of the region\u2019s tourism operators and the ancillary services that supports the industry.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\"><br \/><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"color: #333333; line-height: 19px;\"><span style=\"font-family: inherit;\">Mr Ambrose said that the Sunshine Coast was well placed to build on the impressive international and domestic results when it holds DestinationQ next week, which will see over 300 delegates come to the region for the State\u2019s most powerful tourism trade event.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Sunshine Coast was one of only four regions in Queensland to increase visitor numbers in 2013-14, according to statistics released today by Tourism Research Australia. The National Visitor Survey statistics showed that Sunshine Coast visitation grew by 4.6% in the year ending June 30, 2014. This was the largest increase in southern Queensland, and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[255],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-australia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19583\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}