Tourist visits to the Hinchinbrook planning area

The following graphs show visitation to the Hinchinbrook 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 Hinchinbrook 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, finishing June 2012, by financial year. From a total of 23,363 visitor days in the 1993-1994 financial year, visitation increased rapidly to reach its highest point in 1995-1996, with 29,184 visitor days recorded. A marked decline was then seen in in 1996-1997, with 9667 visitor days, before increasing to 19,396 visitor days in 1997-1998 and 22,405 visitor days in 1998-1999. Visitation then decreased, but remained steady with an average of 16,299 days recorded between July 1998 and June 2003. Visitation then dropped to an average of 10,863 visitor days per year for the subsequent years to June 2008. A slight decrease was seen in 2008-2009 and 2009-2010, before dropping markedly to 4295 visitor days recorded in 2010-2011 and 2290 in the 2011-2012 financial year. 

Visitation by calendar year

Total visitation to the Hinchinbrook 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, finishing December 2011, by calendar year. From a total of 24,581 visitor days in 1994, visitation increased to reach its highest point in 1995, with 29,994 visitor days recorded. A marked decline was then seen in in 1996, with 14796 visitor days, and 12,571 visitor days in 1997. Visitation increased again in 1998, with 26,377 visitor days recorded. Visitation then decreased markedly to 16,802 in 1999, and has continued with an overall decline seen in the following years. Visitation reached its lowest level in 2011, with 2268 visitor days recorded.

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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