Canberra's tourists stay longer and spend more, survey finds

Canberra's packed calendar of summer events helped drive a 3 per cent jump in domestic overnight stays in the year to March compared with the previous 12 months.

Tourism Research Australia's national visitor survey, published on Thursday, shows the ACT welcomed more than 2 million overnight domestic visitors, up from 1.97 million the previous year.

Those visitors stayed for 6.5 million nights, or an average of 3.2 nights per visitor.

That was a 27 per cent rise on the previous year's 5.1 million nights.

Visitor spending increased 6 per cent from $1.083 billion to $1.145 billion.

Friends and relatives were the main reasons for visitors trekking to the capital, making up 38 per cent of the visitor market.

That was closely followed by people taking a holiday (30 per cent) and business trips (25 per cent).

The survey period took in the National Gallery's summer blockbuster, James Turrell: A retrospective, the Enlighten festival and the Night Noodle Markets. It also encompassed the seven Asia Cup matches played in Canberra and the ICC Cricket World Cup.

Chief Minister Andrew Barr said the ACT government's focus on drawing major events was designed to boost the tourism sector and ease the impact of public sector job losses on the economy.

Nearly two-thirds, or 64 per cent, of all overnight expenditure in Australia was generated by domestic visitors.