The Executive Chair of Australian Chamber-Tourism, John Hart, commenting on today’s ABS tourism economic performance figures, said: “It is clear from the Tourism Satellite accounts released today that tourism is making an extraordinary contribution to the Australian economy.
“A 3% increase in employment across the year compared to a national average of 1.3% demonstrates the major contribution tourism is making to overall employment.
“Direct tourism employment has now reached 598,200 people in Australia, an increase of 17,500 for the year to June 2017.
“The volume of GDP for tourism also increased by 4.9% compared to real GDP economy-wide of 2.0%. This demonstrates that tourism is a huge contributor to our national economic performance.
“International and domestic tourism have grown by 5.3% and 4.5% respectively, with total tourism consumption exceeding $233 billion for the year.
“In addition to these very positive outcomes, we know that growth has continued beyond June. Results also released today for the period to October show short-term visitor arrivals are up 6.8%.
“The good news in tourism continues.”