Tourism Noosa attended the Tourism & Events Queensland UK and European roadshow in December 2023, to round out a busy year of reconnecting with the travel trade.
Our Trade Manager Vynka Hutton was joined by Visit Sunshine Coast and members Tasman Venture, SeaLink (Kingfisher Bay Resort and K’gari Explorer Tours) and Experience Co (Skydive Noosa).
33 sellers from across Queensland attended the event, having one-on-one Product Manager meetings and training frontline retail travel agents.
The UK remains Noosa’s number one international source market, with Europe (predominantly Germany), coming in a close 3rd to New Zealand.
The event was held to align with the peak booking period of January, so Queensland is top-of-mind with agents selling Australian holidays to their customers.
Noosa is a top Queensland experience from these markets, with visitors staying an average of 2-5 nights.
A typical Noosa holiday from these visitors includes accommodation, experiences, transfers, retail and restaurants, making them valuable to the Noosa economy.
Tourism Noosa and Visit Sunshine Coast also partnered to deliver a Product Manager lunch to key wholesalers, and conduct training sessions to our top tier wholesale partners to encourage increased bookings.
UK arrivals to Queensland are about 82% of 2019’s level, with spend down a little, due to a large number of people visiting friends and family. However, booking trends show that spend is higher than average and UK visitors are staying longer.
European arrivals are at an average of 75% of 2019, however spend is up significantly at an average of 20% up on 2019.
This shows the European market is also staying longer and spending more when visiting.