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The school holidays have come to an end, but packed arrivals halls at the Gold Coast Airport show visitor numbers to the city remain strong.
Key points:
- The Gold Coast Airport has recorded its busiest summer period since 2019
- Average occupancy in the city's accommodation has been 83.5 per cent, just shy of pre-pandemic levels
- Two new international flights will be added to the Gold Coast Airport's roster in the coming months
December was the airport's busiest month since before the pandemic, with half a million passengers travelling through.
Queensland Airports Limited chief executive Amelia Evans said she expected January's figures to be similar.
While domestic travel had bounced back, international numbers were still recovering.
About 57,000 visitors in December were international tourists.
"That's around 68 to 70 per cent of pre-COVID numbers," Ms Evans said.
"International is going great, but against 2019 numbers they still need to go further."
The Gold Coast Airport recorded a total of 5.7 million travellers last year.
Ms Evans expected that to grow to between 6 and 7 million this year.
"Before this current year, there was an expectation that all international passengers would recover by 2024," Ms Evans said.
"We've actually seen a better recovery than a lot of other airports, but we're expecting that 2024 will be a bit of a milestone."
She said new international routes to Kuala Lumpur and Bali would be added to the airport's roster in the coming months.
Bringing back international visitors
The Gold Coast recorded about 300,000 Chinese visitors every year before the pandemic.
Their absence has left a huge gap in the local market.
"The China market has just opened up. That's been great for Australia, but also for Gold Coast," Ms Evans said.
"Chinese visitation on the Gold Coast is an extremely important market for us.
"We don't have a direct flight to China, but we do have them coming through Sydney, Melbourne, [and] Singapore."
Boosting the bottom line
Dorchester on the Beach manager Michael Cross said his Surfers Paradise holiday apartments had been almost completely full for the Christmas and January period, and bookings were looking strong for next month.
"February last year was our busiest ever February, well we've already surpassed that by about 20 per cent," Mr Cross said.
"We're already sold out for the April school holidays."
He said this year's bookings were about 15 per cent international tourists, compared with the pre pandemic average of 30 per cent.
Destination Gold Coast head of stakeholders and strategy Rachel Hancock said the city's average holiday occupancy had been 83.5 per cent, which was 1.3 per cent shy of pre-pandemic levels.
"Our modelling suggests an economic impact of $657 million will flow into the Gold Coast economy between Boxing Day and Australia Day," Ms Hancock said.