Tourist visits to the Cairns Planning area

The following graphs show visitation to the Cairns Planning Area including full day visits, part day visits and visits by those who are exempt from paying the Environment Management Charge (EMC). Full day visits are the best gauge of the general trend of tourism in the Marine Park. The data is displayed by financial and calendar years and does not include coral viewing activities or scenic flights. Monthly data are also available in .csv format.

Visitation by financial year

Total visitation to the Cairns Planning Area including full day visits, part day visits and visits by those who are exempt from paying the Environment Management Charge (EMC) commencing July 1993 and finishing June 2012, by financial year. From a total of 792,616 visitor days in the 1993-1994 financial year, visitation steadily increased to 968,111 visitor days in 1996-1997, before declining markedly in 1997-1998 to 822,177 visitor days. Subsequently visitation gradually increased again, peaking at 922,633 in 2004-2005. A decline was seen in the years following to the end of the 2009-2010 financial year, however a slow increase has been seen since July 2010, with total visitation recorded for the 2011-2012 financial year of 764,013 visitor days. 

Visitation by calendar year

Total visitation to the Cairns Planning Area including full day visits, part day visits and visits by those who are exempt from paying the Environment Management Charge (EMC) commencing July 1993 and finishing December 2011, by calendar year. From a total of 847,980 visitor days in 1994, visitation steadily increased to 973,943 visitor days in 1997, before declining markedly in 1998 to 796,814 visitor days. Subsequently visitation gradually increased again, peaking at 920,358 in 2004. A decline was seen in the years following to the end of the 2008, which saw 744,653 visitor days recorded, however a slow increase has been seen since then, with total visitation recorded for 2011 of 751,429 visitor days.

Important information about this data

  1. The data represents visitors to the Great Barrier Reef who used commercial tourist operations.
  2. Data is updated quarterly following receipt of Environmental Management Charge returns from tourism operators.
  3. The count of visitor days to the Marine Park is calculated where passengers undertake a visit as follows:
    • Full day visits:
      • A day trip of more than three hours is recorded as a full day visit
      • Overnight trips are recorded as multiple full days, for example, a stay of two-days and one night is counted as two full day visits.
    • Part day visits:
      • Where the trip is less than three hours
      • The first day of a trip entering the Marine Park after 5 pm
      • The last day of a trip leaving the Marine Park before 6 am
    • Exempt visits are passengers who are not required to pay the Environmental Management Charge (EMC), for example:
      • Young children who are free-of-charge
      • Trade familiarisation passengers who are free-of-charge
      • Passengers for whom another operator has already paid EMC on that day
      • The fourth and subsequent days for passengers on extended charters.
  4. The data for 1993 represents six months visitation as data collection commenced in July 1993.
  5. Recording part day visits began in the fourth quarter of 2001.  These figures were previously included with the full day visits.
  6. The recording of coral viewing activities (for example, glass bottom boat tours) commenced in July 2007. This data is not included in the graph (above).
  7. The recording of scenic flights commenced in October 2009. This data is not included in the graph (above).
  8. The data does not include transfer passengers (for example ferry passengers).
  9. The data presented has not been validated. 
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