qdts-camping-options-toolkit

Regional and seasonal trends
Fact sheet H
Seasonality
All tourism destinations experience varying levels of
seasonality in terms of demand and volumes of visitors,
driven by issues such as their range of tourism products,
destinations and attractions, weather patterns, and key
visitor markets. Seasonal demand directly influences
issues such as the numbers of visitors, levels of
expenditure, volume of traffic on highways, employment,
admissions to attractions and demand for visitor
accommodation including caravan sites and campsites.
Having a clear understanding of the typical seasonality in
demand for commercial and non- commercial campsites
is vital to developing effective local camping policies and
management frameworks.
Figure H.1 shows the seasonal spread of camping visitors
to Queensland, with peaks in January, April and October
correlating with school holidays and families seeking
short trips.
Table H.1 Rate of change from 2006 to 2013 in use of
commercial and non-commercial camping grounds by
international and domestic visitors to Queensland
Age
(years)
Commercial
Non-commercial
International Domestic International Domestic
15–24 -37% -42% -9% 77%
25–44 -42% 0% -18% 47%
45–64 -41% -11% 93% 15%
65+ -47% 22% -2% 67%
In addition to understanding seasonality, it is also
important to understand the sources of demand for
camping accommodation.
As Table H.1 shows, there is strong growth in the use of
non-commercial accommodation by domestic visitors
to Queensland. Commercial accommodation has seen a
decline in both international and domestic markets.
Consideration must be given by each local government
to the trends in visitors seen in their region in recent
years. Table H.1 and Figure H.1 show the domestic
visitation to regions and accommodation preferences.
Figure H.1 Domestic overnight camping visitors to Queensland by month of return
160
Number of visitors (000)
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
January February March April May June July August September October November December
Month of return
Fact sheet H
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