'Golden Week' boosts Australian tourism

China's latest peak travel period helped Australia's pillar tourism sector reach new highs, reflecting the rising importance of the Chinese market as businesses and other stakeholders look to tap growth trends.

The weeklong National Day holiday, beginning on Oct 1, saw many Chinese travelers planning earlier departures and longer trips, according to online travel agency Trip.com.

Bookings for hotel stays of seven or more nights rose 123 percent year-on-year, and long-haul flight bookings also clocked double-digit growth, the group said.

According to Trip.com, demand has concentrated among "gateway cities" in popular markets such as Australia, and Chinese travelers sought "respite with nature escapes and cultural exploration".

Nick Henderson, Tourism Australia's regional general manager for China, said the longer National Day holiday is growing in popularity as a "fantastic opportunity" for Chinese travelers to spend more time exploring beyond Australia's gateway cities, adding that preliminary booking data showed "travelers were quick to jump on board".

Tourism Australia is the government agency responsible for attracting international visitors to the country for leisure and business events.

Bookings to Australia for the first week of October were up 19 percent year-on-year, "highlighting the growing popularity of booking an Australian holiday during Golden Week" — the latest holiday period — alongside more traditional peaks over the December-to-February Chinese New Year and midyear school vacations, Henderson said.

Sydney ranked among the top destinations for Chinese outbound travel during the recent holidays, helping boost the visitor economy, according to Destination NSW, the New South Wales state tourism agency.

The state welcomed 4.1 million international visitors in the year ending June, up 5.8 percent year-on-year, with China the state's largest international source of visitors. International visitor expenditure rose 14.5 percent year-on-year to A$15.1 billion ($10.5 billion), "driven by strong growth in visitors and expenditure from China", the agency said.

Peter Shelley, managing director of the Australian Tourism Export Council, the peak industry body representing Australia's tourism export sector, said the Golden Week is an important holiday period.

"China is one of our most valuable tourism markets, with more than 1.1 million Chinese visitors in the past year, up over 18 percent," Shelley said.

His organization represents more than 1,000 members across Australia, including large national and multinational companies, as well as small and medium-sized enterprises, many based in regional and remote parts of the country.

"These holiday peaks provide a welcome boost for Australian tourism businesses, and we'd love to see more Chinese visitors exploring our regional destinations," Shelley said.

Chinese travelers are increasingly looking for independent travel, smaller groups and more personalized experiences, "creating great opportunities for Australian tourism businesses to showcase the diversity of what we have to offer", he said.

Host programs and advisory groups have helped businesses better understand Chinese visitors, including their travel preferences and holiday bookings, and industry insights to help shape the future of group travel from China, he said.

"There's still plenty of opportunity to grow this market, and helping Chinese travelers discover more of Australia is an important part of that," Shelley said.

Contact the writers at xinxin@chinadaily.com.cn