It’s World Tourism Day (27 September) and our hard-working Destination Kiama and Economic Development committee members and staff have, appropriately, been at one of our best-loved, and recently upgraded, visitor attractions – the Minnamurra Rainforest.
Thanks in no small part to our Destination gurus, our municipality remains a tourism hot-spot, with more than 1.3 million visitors in the 12 months to March.
That’s a 90% increase year-on year!
Those visitors spent around $279 million over that time.
Unsurprisingly, day trippers represent the vast majority of our visitors.
However, the number of overnight visitors has increased by 23%, spending an average of 2.7 nights, and each on average spending more than $500 while here.
This is important given the average day tripper spends about $89 during their visit.
The stats confirm, we remain a café and beaches mecca, with visiting friends and family, bushwalking and sightseeing rounding out the top five reasons to come here.
This year, Destination Kiama were busier than ever with administering Council’s own series of events via a successful grant from the NSW Governments Reconnecting Regional NSW Community Events Program to the value of $239,651.
Behind the scenes, Destination Kiama invested more than $60,000 in funding to support local events that act as a tourism drawcard.
That’s on top of the in-kind support and concierge service provided to event organisers.
Destination Kiama continue to run a successful partnership program with more than 215 local member businesses, who, in turn, are represented in national marketing campaigns and online via kiama.com.au.
That’s on top of the promotional support provided by our Visitor Information Centre, who serve between 3,000 and 6,000 visitors each month!
There are also invitations to industry networking events and upskilling opportunities.
From only $10 per week demonstrates exceptional value!
