Our Industry

In this section we give a snapshot of the NSW tourism and events sector, tally up the latest economic data and connect you to the state’s extensive tourism network.

NSW is Australia’s top performing tourism state. More visitors come to NSW - and they stay longer and spend more.

NSW Visitor Snapshot

Domestic Tourism: More than 96% of all visitors to NSW come from within Australia, with the majority of these coming from interstate markets.

• In 2010/11 NSW received more than 24.1 million domestic overnight visitors – an increase of 5.3% over the previous year.
• Regional NSW (40%) was the largest source of visitors to the state followed by Sydney (28.2%)
• Most interstate visitors came from Victoria (11.4%) and Queensland (11.6%).
• The average length of stay in NSW was 3.4 nights

• In 2010/11 NSW received more than 2.8 million international overseas visitors – an increase of 1.1% over the previous year
• The state’s largest international source markets were, in order:
  1. New Zealand (14%)
  2. United Kingdom (12.4%)
  3. United States of America (10.3%)
  4. Mainland China (10.2%)
• The average length of stay for international visitors was 24 nights

Tourism Forecasts

International visitors to Australia are expected to increase at an average annual rate of 3.6% over the 2010-20 period to reach 8.4 million in 2020.

Destination NSW is planning for extraordinary growth in visitor numbers and associated spending from the developing markets of China and India.

China is NSW’s fastest growing markets and is already, its largest contributor of visitor nights (16%).

The Indian market now ranks as no. 10 in NSW’s list of top ten international source markets but is number 6 in terms of its share of NSW visitor nights. Although still developing off a base of about 70,000 per annum, Indian visitors have the longest length of stay in NSW (47.8 nights).

The Tourism Forecasting Council (TFC) expects inbound tourism to Australia from China to increase at an annual average growth rate of 7.2% between 2010-20. Indian visitor arrivals are expected to increase at an annual average growth rate of 8.5% - the highest of all inbound markets.

_{Source: TFC Issue1 2011.
Tourism Forecasting Committee and National & International Visitor Survey year ending June 2011}

More Information

Latest quarterly NSW tourism data and additional research and analysis

Economic Value of NSW tourism