The year of Cyclone Debbie has still managed to reel international tourists to the Whitsundays.
International Visitor Statistics released yesterday showed 241,000 visitors came to the region in the year ending June 30, 2017.
This marks an 8.7% increase year-on-year.
Of the 241,000 visitors, 234,000 people were in the area for holidays, representing a 9.4% boost on holiday-makers in the same period last year.
Both of these increases were higher than the overall Queensland increases of 5.6 per cent for international visitors and 6.5 per cent for international holidaymakers.
Tourism Whitsundays CEO Craig Turner said this spoke volumes about the resilience of local tourism.
“Considering these figures include the last quarter of the financial year – April, May and June – it is absolutely fantastic that we have still added almost 10% to our international holiday-maker tally, compared to the same period last year,” he said.
“All tourism operators and indeed the whole region should take heart from these visitor figures as we are ahead of the rest of Queensland when it comes to percentage increases and this is after experiencing an extreme weather event.”
A total of 2.6 million overseas visitors came to Queensland in the 12-month period to June 30, 2017, and 1.8 million of these were holidaymakers.
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