Based on the report overnight visitors are up 65.5% that is from 253,000 to 418,000 visitors. Domestic visitor nights are up by 58.8% from 587,000 to 932,000 nights. Domestic day trips also increased 16.5% from 690,000 to 804,000.
Greater Shepparton City Council Director Sustainable Development, Geraldine Christou said this is a great achievement for Greater Shepparton and is a credit to all the hard work everyone in the community has made from businesses, residents and organisations.
“Overnight visitors to our region would spend on average 2.2 nights and it is estimated visitors spend $103 million in our region. This is great news for our local economy.
“Council has worked strategically towards its positioning in the municipality by hosting major events, arts and culture, business and sporting events as well as driving development of a number of key visitor economy infrastructure projects. Based on the statistics this has helped increase our visitor numbers by more than double. Council and the Visitor Centre have worked really hard in the last few years to put Greater Shepparton on the map.”
Tourism Greater Shepparton President Ross Graham said “the results from the 2017 visitor survey is a great result for Greater Shepparton and an indication of the supreme effort that the GSCC and Tourism partners, who continually promote the Shepparton region to the wider population.
The Greater Shepparton community has to be congratulated on the commitment and support of festivals and events that are building a strong economy and vibrant community. Visitors contribute to job creation and economic growth and the increase in visitor numbers will continue to promote many great things in Shepparton” said Mr. Graham.
These visitation statistics build further on the recent success for the visitor economy in Shepparton with the Greater Shepparton Visitor Centre winning the 2017 Victorian Tourism Awards and being a finalist at the Australian Tourism Awards in the Visitor Services category and being voted by Wotif.com as runner up in Australia top towns and top town for Victoria.
