Canberra continues to experience a booming tourism trade, with the cool capital recording the country's second-highest growth in visitor numbers in 2017-18.
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Floriade also had a 10 per cent boost in attendance numbers in 2018, according to ACT government data.
The festival revamped its offerings to visitors this year, including stands from local producers Capital Brewing Co and Pialligo Estate.
The spring festival had 480,540 visitors this year, up from 434,414 visitors last year but still shy of its 2014 attendance record of 481,854. Forty per cent of this year's visitors were from NSW.
Data from Tourism Research Australia showed the ACT recorded a 12 per cent boost in visitor numbers in the 2017-18 financial year.
This was the second highest growth in the country, topped only by Tasmania which saw a more than 20 per cent boost in numbers.
Canberra played host to over 5.6 million visitors in 2017-18, up from over 4.5 million in 2016-17.
Victoria had the country's third-highest growth, with 7.9 per cent, while the Northern Territory fared the worst, recording a 7.4 per cent drop in visitor numbers between 2016-17 and 2017-18.
Federal Tourism Minister Simon Birmingham said Canberra's numbers were an encouraging sign for the bush capital.
“This is good news for Canberra and it’s great to see travellers are making the trek down the highway from Sydney and getting a taste for the nation’s capital," Mr Birmingham said.
While more visitors were heading to Tasmania, the ACT and the Apple Isle saw similar growth in the amount of cash tourists were spending in the region.
The ACT had a 20.9 per cent jump in spending in 2017-18, while Tasmania saw 20.8 per cent.
But backpackers are spending less in Canberra than regular visitors, with the average backpacker expenditure down 27 per cent in the same period.
Backpackers spent about $30 less per night in Canberra in 2017-18, from $109 in 2016-17 to $77 in 2017-18.
They were also spending roughly the same amount of nights in Canberra as they did in the previous year, averaging 22 nights in the capital in 2017-18 compared to 21 in 2016-17.
The increase in visitors' average regional spending has mainly come from regular visitors, who spent 36 per cent more in the Canberra region in 2017-18 than in the year before.
Canberra was named one of the top 10 cities to visit in 2018 by Lonely Planet last year, the highest ever listing of an Australian city in the publication.
Overall, 249,000 tourists - including backpackers - visited Canberra in the 2017-18 financial year, up 12.4 per cent from 221,000 visitors in 2016-17.
They spent an average of 23 nights in the capital, two less than over the same period the year before, but spent about 20 per cent more in the region.
Visitors spent $647 million in the Canberra region in 2017-18, up 20.9 per cent from $535 million in 2016-17.
While the data released by Tourism Research Australia didn't break down visitor numbers by country of origin, figures from July showed Germany, India and Hong Kong were the capital's highest-growing tourism markets.
