Domestic tourism ad spend booms in 2022, almost tripling pre-pandemic levels

Domestic tourism boards have spent the past year ramping up advertising efforts for those looking to holiday within our own shores, spending upwards of $90 million across the past year, dwarfing pre-pandemic advertising levels.

According to data provided to Mumbrella by Nielsen Ad Intel, Tourism and Events Queensland topped the pile in media spend between 1 November 2021 and 31 October 2022, falling just shy of the $20 million mark with $19,927,000.

Domestic tourism spend has gone gangbusters in 2022

With a total of $90,493,000, this outweighs spend across the calendar year of 2019, with a total of $32,475,000 spent between 6 January to 31 December. While coverage from Nielsen has widened since 2019, the numbers show the significant rise in activity domestic tourism has had in the absence of international travel, with Tourism Australia only recently relaunching the national to global market.

The figures include spend across TV, press, magazines, radio, OOH, cinema, general display and social.

The state’s tourism board topped its spend in February this year at $4,095,000, and again spent close to $4 million in June, in a positive sign for dentsu, which won the account just last week. 

Second on the list was Visit Victoria, which spent $14,129,000 across the year, with Destination NSW following closely behind on 13,502,000.

In fourth was the SA Tourism Commission, which recently appointed Tourism Tasmania CMO, Emma Terry as its new CEO. The SATC spent $9,571,000 during the period.

Across the other state boards, the WA Tourism Commission spent, $8,546,000, Tourism Tasmania spent $4,680,000, NT Tourist Commission $4,332,000, while Tourism Australia spent $3,710,000 domestically also.