Released on Wednesday, the Tourism Research Australia survey figures for international visitors in the year to March showed 177,065 overseas tourists coming to Canberra, representing a drop of 2 per cent.

Foreign visitors spent $360 million in the year in the territory, representing an increase of 1 per cent on the previous 12 months.

Only the ACT and Western Australia recorded decreases, as overseas visitors to Australia increased 8 per cent to 6.5 million. Nationally, overnight stays increased 7 per cent to 231 million and expenditure rose 10 per cent to $32.5 billion.

Nationally, tourists visiting friends and relatives grew 10 per cent to 1.8 million and holiday visitor numbers were up 7 per cent to 2.9 million.

Opposition tourism spokesman Brendan Smyth and Chief Minister Andrew Barr viewed the ACT figures quite differently on Thursday.

Mr Smyth said the ACT government's "CBR" tourism strategy and rebranding effort were failing local providers and other businesses, as national trends showed increases in art-and-craft visits, heritage and monuments, festivals and cultural events and botanic gardens.

He said each of the areas should be growing strengths of the Canberra region.

"The government has to explain why this decrease has occurred and why their strategy is not working for international visitors," Mr Smyth said.

"You've got to look at whether CBR is actually working. It was there for a year, it was reviewed and changed. The question is, has it let down the tourism agency and the local economy?"

He called on the government to replicate success from the 2013 Canberra centenary celebrations, to fund a new convention centre and to lobby the federal government for new attractions including a proposed natural history museum in the national capital.

"The bottom line is we're not getting the visitors, we're going against the national trend, we're not getting increases and expenditure, and the government should answer why," Mr Smyth said.

Mr Barr said the figures were generally positive for the ACT.

"There was an increase of 55,755 in international visitor nights to 4,364,794 nights, and international expenditure has also increased by $3.2 millions to $359.9 millions," he said in a statement.

"The business and visiting-friends-and-relatives market segments recorded increases of 2.3 per cent and 1.3 per cent respectively. Holiday visitor nights were up 30.8 per cent from 649,664 to 849,537."

Mr Barr welcomed growing visitor numbers from China, Britain, the United States and Singapore.

"The lack of direct international flights significantly hampers our ability to rapidly increase our international numbers. We will continue to work closely with Canberra Airport and our tourism industry partners to achieve our shared goal of direct international flights."

The long-held ambition of winning international flights has included lobbying in Asia, New Zealand and the Middle East. Mr Barr has sought to woo carriers through a $1.1 million fund for co-operation between airlines and tourism agencies promoting Canberra.

Singapore Airlines, Air New Zealand, Qantas, Virgin, Emirates and Etihad Airways have all met with ACT officials but none has taken up incentives or marketing payments.

The government's tourism strategy aims to grow the value of overnight visitor expenditure to the ACT to $2.5 billion by 2020.