The year 2025 is ending on a high with news of record international spend and visitation making Tropical North Queensland the best performing region in the State for both total and holiday visitors.
The International Visitor Survey results released today for the year ending September 2025 demonstrate the success of the $15 million Federal Government investment into the International Tourism Recovery program for our region. This funding allowed TTNQ to deliver a record 110 international campaigns in 2024-25, delivering an extra 205,000 visitors to the region and supporting more than 1500 additional jobs in our communities.
International visitor numbers grew by 14.6% to 595,000 in the year to September 2025 from the previous year, driving record spend of $1.1 billion, an 18.5% increase. Visitor nights jumped by 19.9% to 5.8 million, the average length of stay grew by 0.4 to 9.7 nights, and the average spend per visitor increased by 3.4% to $1910.
Holiday visitors grew by 13.4% to 526,000 and the visiting friends and relatives (VFR) segment performed very strongly with a 41.6% increase to a record 51,000, while business visitors dropped by 5.1% to 13,000.
The United States was our largest international source market with 94,000. It grew by 9.2% to outperform our previous largest market, Japan, which declined by 8.2% to 91,000. The US growth comes after the launch of Fiji Airways services in April 2025 reducing the flight time to the US to just to 16 hours.
The United Kingdom and New Zealand exceeded 2019 figures with 5.9% growth from the UK to 79,000, and a 48.3% jump from NZ to 40,000. This strong growth helped the VFR numbers increase and came on the back of Jetstar’s new direct flights to Christchurch launching in April 2025.
China showed the largest growth of 62.6% to 43,000, helped by the return of seasonal services with Cathay Pacific which continue for this Chinese New Year period. Canada increased by 18.2% to 21,000, Germany fell by 18.7% to 29,000, and France also fell by 21.6% to 13,000. These European figures were offset by strong growth from the Netherlands of 32.7% to 16,000. Continental Europe grew by 8.2% to 130,000, North America by 10.7% to 115,000 and Asia by 17.7% to 194,000.
Our domestic figures have also shown growth in the nine months of record keeping under the new Domestic Tourism Survey with TNQ in the top 15 regions nationally for both total and holiday overnight visitor expenditure. Domestic expenditure is at $2.4 billion giving TNQ 8.7% of Queensland’s market, with our $2.2 billion overnight visitor expenditure representing 10.6% of the market and $191.6 million day trip expenditure (2.9%).
There were 1.39 million overnight visitors representing 7% of the State who stayed 5.4 million nights (8%). The average length of stay was 4.1 nights, above the State average of 3.6 and the national average of 3.4. TNQ also had the highest spend with $1657 per visitor, above Queensland’s at $1082 and Australia’s at $952.
The 681,000 holiday visitors represented 8% of the Queensland market with expenditure of $1.4 billion (12%). Business visitors hit 181,000 (7%) with $258.1 million expenditure (8%), and VFR 397,000 (6%) spending $473.7 million (9%). There were 454,000 interstate visitors (34%) spending $1.2 billion (55%) and 876,000 intrastate visitors (56%) spending $995.9 million (45%).
It is fitting that these positive results come after a year of celebration for TTNQ as we remember our 50-year history and acknowledge the hard work and passion of the many people who built our marketing body into the country’s largest and most successful Regional Tourism Organisation. Their legacy continues with the work of the dedicated TTNQ team and the support of our members who hunt as a pack to promote the destination – thank you for your commitment.
Best wishes for a safe and happy festive season and I look forward to working with you in the New Year.
Mark Olsen
Chief Executive Officer