{"id":68380,"date":"2020-04-23T11:27:27","date_gmt":"2020-04-23T00:27:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/ballarat\/?p=68380"},"modified":"2020-04-23T11:27:27","modified_gmt":"2020-04-23T00:27:27","slug":"regional-visitor-volume-heads-upwards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/ballarat\/news\/regional-visitor-volume-heads-upwards\/","title":{"rendered":"Regional visitor volume heads upwards"},"content":{"rendered":"

THE number of people visiting Ballarat has increased by about half-a-million, year-on-year, according to statistics released by Tourism Research Australia.<\/p>\n

Between December 2018 and December 2019 over 3.35 million people visited the region.<\/p>\n

City of Ballarat mayor Cr Ben Taylor said the increase showed the city\u2019s tourism and events marketing was working well.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese results demonstrate that the investment into the visitor economy was the right strategy and is testament to the efforts of both Ballarat Regional Tourism and council,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The increase in numbers were lifted by new and returning major events like the Split Milk<\/a> music festival which had 30,000 attendees, and the Begonia Festival<\/a> that saw 60,000 people flock to the Botanic Gardens \u2013 33 per cent of which were from out of the region.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese events, coupled with our world-class attractions such as Sovereign Hill, the Ballarat Wildlife Park and Creswick Woollen Mills also saw our international visitor nights grow\u201d Cr Taylor said.<\/p>\n

A statement released by council said the 2019 overall visitor numbers compared favourably with other regions like Geelong and Bendigo.<\/p>\n

However, some old problems persisted, with both those regions making the top-50 for overnight stays nation-wide, while Ballarat was not on that list.<\/p>\n

With data on the impacts of COVID-19 on the city\u2019s tourism industry yet to be released, Cr Taylor said the 2019 figures would be used to measure how well recovery was going, when it got underway.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will have a lot of work to do to get back to the visitor numbers of 2019, but we have a strong product offering, and a hard-working tourism and hospitality sector ready to work with us to reignite the visitor experience that is Ballarat,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THE number of people visiting Ballarat has increased by about half-a-million, year-on-year, according to statistics released by Tourism Research Australia. Between December 2018 and December 2019 over 3.35 million people visited the region. City of Ballarat mayor Cr Ben Taylor said the increase showed the city\u2019s tourism and events marketing was working well. \u201cThese results […]<\/p>\n

Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":68381,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-68380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nRegional visitor volume heads upwards - Ballarat Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/ballarat\/news\/regional-visitor-volume-heads-upwards\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Regional visitor volume heads upwards - Ballarat Times\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"THE number of people visiting Ballarat has increased by about half-a-million, year-on-year, according to statistics released by Tourism Research Australia. Between December 2018 and December 2019 over 3.35 million people visited the region. 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