Adam Empringham,
Director of Sales at Image Property.
Sunshine Coast set to welcome more local visitors
Did you know that the vast majority of visitors to the Sunshine Coast have always been other Aussies?
In fact, nearly 73 per cent of all visitors to the coast are classified as domestic tourists, who either come for a day trip or who stay here for holidays.
So, even before coronavirus, the coast was one of the most popular locations for a holiday for people from Brisbane and from around the country.
There were a staggering 12 million domestic visitor nights or day trips to our little piece of paradise last year – and that was a number that had been growing for the past few years as well.
With international borders likely to be closed for many months, of course, this holds our region in good stead for welcoming even more local visitors later this year.
While the timing of this remains unclear, one can safely assume that local visitors, such as from Brisbane, will be the first cab off the rank.
Now this might not seem like much but, according to official tourism statistics, there were 4.3 million domestic day trips in the 2019 financial year.
Timely new runway
With most aircraft grounded around the world, the Sunshine Coast Airport’s expansion has been continuing to take shape in the background.
The upgrade includes a new runway, which will accommodate larger aircraft, with the first test landing actually taking place a few days ago.
Amongst the myriad pieces of major infrastructure already under way on the coast, there is no doubt that the new runway will play a critical role in our region’s economic recovery in the months ahead.
With more Aussies predicted to holiday within the nation’s borders for the foreseeable future, the runway is set to welcome even more of them to our shores given its proposed opening date is mid-June.
Prior to the pandemic, the benefits to our region from the new runway included the creation of 2230 new jobs in the next two decades as well as the potential to attract more than two million additional passengers annually.
“No one knows how long it will be before people can holiday overseas again and, perhaps, many will actually decide to stay closer to home even when they can.” said Sunshine Coast agent Nathan Christmas.
The Sunshine Coast is one of the places that they will choose to visit – as they have always done.
But, this time, we are likely to welcome many more visitors than previously – and that has the potential to benefit our economy, and our property market, like never before.
