BRISBANE—Australians are spending more on domestic holidays, but the market remains stagnant, new data shows.
Tourism Research Australia today released its Travel by Australians report which provides a snapshot of domestic tourism for the 12 months to March 31.
It shows Australians took 74.5 million overnight trips, spending $44.5 billion - up five per cent on last year's $43.9 billion spend.
And day trippers took 143 million trips, spending $14.4 billion - up six per cent from last year's $13.5 billion.
The increases saw the total economic value of the industry rise by $3.2 billion or five per cent, to reach $64.6 billion.
But the figures revealed that overnight visitors increased just two per cent compared with the previous year.
Most chose to holiday in their own states while the remaining 33 per cent travelled interstate.
NSW received the most holidaymakers (33 per cent), followed by Queensland (27 per cent) and Victoria (24 per cent).
But they spent more in Queensland than any other state.
Among the cities, Melbourne attracted the highest spend ($4.7 billion), followed by Sydney ($4.6 billion).
And more than half of spending went to regional areas, where Queensland's Sunshine Coast and NSW's mid-north and south coasts were big winners.
The figures come after the release of the latest International Visitor Survey last week which found international visitors had grown just one per cent on the previous 12 months.
It showed 5.2 million people visited Australia during the 12 months to March 2008, spending a total of $16 billion within the country.