Hong Kong’s big spenders love Australia
Five cities in the Asia Pacific, led by Hong Kong, have featured in the top ten for both inbound visitor numbers and visitor expenditure in Sydney.
According to new research from the MasterCard Index of Global Destination Cities, 318,000 visitors from Hong Kong are expected to spend in excess of US$3.22 billion in Sydney in 2011.
This is closely followed by Singapore with 462,000 visitors expected to spend US$1.55 billion; and Bangkok with 149,000 visitors expected to spend US$1.49 billion.
Figures for Melbourne show that the highest number of international visitors will come from Singapore (416,000, spending US$1.3bn) but the biggest spenders will be from Hong Kong (168,000 visitors, spending US$1.7bn)
Going the other way, the Mastercard research reveals that the top spending destinations for Australians are now a mixture of cities in Asia Pacific and the United States.
While London remains the most popular destination on a global basis in terms of visitation and visitor spending, the city now ranks outside of the top ten places to fly to for Australians.
More than 349,000 people flying from Sydney are predicted to visit Los Angeles this year and are expected to spend in excess of US$1.9 billion.
Los Angeles was closely followed by Auckland with 490,000 visitors from Sydney expected to spend $865 million.
Nadi, Fiji, is third on the list with 210,000 visitors expected to spend $700 million on travel, accommodation, dining and entertainment in the area during the course of the year.
MasterCard has launched the cities.masterintelligence.com website – which outlines visitor number and cross border expenditure in to and out of 132 cities across five regions.
Ian Jarrett
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