Canberra led the nation in 2016 for increased international visitor expenditure in a bumper year that saw 7.6 million visitors spend a record $39.1 billion across the country.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The ACT recorded 208,000 visitors (+7%) who spent $452 million. The 15 per cent extra they paid was Australia's highest gain.
Canberra also had the biggest gains for average trip expenditure (+7.7%) and average expenditure per night (+33.1%).
The big spend came despite reduced average stays (down from 26 nights to 21) and a 38.9 per cent plunge in backpacker nights, suggesting more well-heeled, high-yield visitors.
For those citing education as a reason for their Canberra stopover, total expenditure rose 22.7 per cent to $272 million. There was modest growth in the holiday market, family visits and business travel.
The impressive ACT figures include minimal impact from the introduction of international flights to Singapore and Wellington, which only began on September 21.
Federal tourism minister Steven Ciobo said spending by international visitors to Australia had now grown more than 35 per cent in three years.
The fastest growing markets were from Taiwan (up 26 per cent), Japan (24%), Korea (24%), China (17%) and the United States (16%).
"The Turnbull Government is supporting further growth in the Australian tourism industry, including by investing a record $639 million in Tourism Australia to market Australia abroad; negotiating the world's best aviation access agreements; and introducing visitor visa improvements," Mr Ciobo said.
Chief Minister Andrew Barr welcomed the ACT results.
"Our local tourism industry supports the ACT's strong economy by employing over 16,000 Canberrans," Mr Barr said.
"It is also great to see visitors from Singapore increase by 73.5 per cent in 2016 after Singapore Airlines began regular flights between Canberra and Singapore.
"China remains the ACT's largest international visitor market, representing 19.7 per cent of all international visitors to the ACT, followed by the United Kingdom, United States of America, New Zealand and Singapore.
"We look forward to seeing further positive results as we work towards growing the ACT's overnight visitor expenditure to $2.5 billion by 2020."
Backpacker numbers rose eight per cent nationally but fell 4.4 per cent in Canberra.
The international visitor survey is available from Tourism Research Australia.
