VISITOR TRAVEL IN AUSTRALIA

Day visitors

Day visitors are those who travel for a round trip distance of at least 50 kilometres, are away from home for at least four hours, and who do not spend a night away from home as part of their travel. Same-day travel as part of overnight travel is excluded, as is routine travel such as commuting between work/school and home.

In 2006, there were 134.5 million day trips taken in Australia by Australian residents aged 15 years and over, an increase of 4,344,000 day visitors from 130.1 million day trips in 2005 (table 23.14).

23.14 DAY VISITORS(a), By state/territory visited
	Destination
	NSW	Vic.	Qld	SA	WA	Tas.	NT	ACT	Aust.(b)
	’000	’000	’000	’000	’000	’000	’000	’000	’000
2002	50 410	35 945	24 707	10 519	12 902	4 514	1 027	2 108	142 133
2003	44 988	36 499	27 250	10 546	12 135	4 705	1 049	1 888	139 060
2004	40 505	30 655	30 938	9 735	11 448	3 958	908	1 422	129 568
2005	41 782	31 604	28 497	9 707	12 079	4 117	904	1 428	130 120
2006	44 229	32 158	28 422	10 463	12 455	4 417	967	1 351	134 464
(a) Australian residents aged 15 years and over.
(b) Components may not add to total as total includes unspecified and offshore visits that could not be allocated to a state or territory.
Source: Tourism Research Australia, 2006, 'Travel by Australians', December quarter 2005, Tourism Australia, Canberra.

In 2006, 53% of day trips were for holiday/leisure purposes, 29% were to visit friends and/or relatives and 9% were for business purposes (graph 23.15).

In 2006, New South Wales received the most day visitors (33%), followed by Victoria (24%) and Queensland (21%) (graph 23.16).

Visitor nights

Domestic overnight travel involves a stay away from home for at least one night, at a place at least 40 kilometres from home. A person is an overnight visitor to a location if they stay one or more nights in the location while travelling.

Australians spent 285.7 million nights away from home during 2006 (table 23.17), an increase of 3.6% compared with 2005.

23.17 VISITOR NIGHTS(a), By state/territory visited
	NSW	Vic.	Qld	SA	WA	Tas.	NT	ACT	Aust.(b)
	’000	’000	’000	’000	’000	’000	’000	’000	’000
2002	93 269	56 684	76 342	20 424	29 748	8 775	7 518	5 382	298 658
2003	88 188	54 892	78 839	21 146	29 997	9 647	6 141	5 235	294 112
2004	89 179	54 872	78 196	21 680	31 002	10 263	6 522	5 107	296 877
2005	82 450	51 119	74 872	18 653	28 422	8 550	6 329	5 400	275 859
2006	86 197	53 452	75 210	19 075	29 671	9 434	6 877	5 612	285 661
(a) Australian residents aged 15 years and over.
(b) Total includes unspecified and offshore visits that could not be allocated to a state or territory.
Source: Tourism Research Australia, 2007, 'Travel by Australians', December quarter 2006, Tourism Australia, Canberra.

Overnight travellers who had holiday or leisure as their main purpose of visit accounted for the majority of domestic visitor nights (48%), followed by those travelling to visit friends and/or relatives (32%) and for business purposes (14%) (graph 23.18).

In 2006, overnight visitors spent the highest proportion of nights in New South Wales (30%), followed by Queensland (26%) and Victoria (19%) (graph 23.19).

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