The luxury traveller spends about four times more than an ordinary tourist yet in many of Australia’s regional areas there is a distinct lack of premium experiences suitable to be promoted to this market. This results in regions chasing growth in visitor numbers rather than visitor yield and risks over-tourism, degradation of the natural environment and/or charm of a place and puts pressure on resources such as waste management and traffic numbers.

Regions who act now to ready their tour operators for the luxury tourism sector, will be well placed to take advantage of new domestic growth and when visitors come back from around the globe, particularly as it will be the first sector to bounce back after Covid-19.