Minister for Tourism and Major Events, George Souris, today welcomed the results from the Overseas Arrivals and Departures figures, which show NSW continues to strengthen its position as the number one holiday destination in Australia.

“The Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show that as at year-end February 2014, visitor arrivals to NSW were more than 2.4 million, the highest number of arrivals in eight years and is an increase of almost 10 per cent in 12 months, exceeding the national average growth of 6.8 per cent,” Mr Souris said.

“Visitor numbers from our top 10 priority tourism markets including, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, United Kingdom and the United States of America grew by more than 10 per cent.

“One of the standout results was that visitors from India grew by 16.7 per cent.

“These figures follow NSW’s solid performance in another indicator, the recently released Tourism Satellite Accounts, which showed that the NSW Government’s focus on tourism and major events resulted in a job boost for the State with 158,000 people employed in tourism across the State – an extra 6,000 direct tourism jobs.

“In addition to the extra jobs, NSW continues to lead Queensland and Victoria in terms of growth and market share for all key indicators.

“The NSW Government, through our tourism agency Destination NSW, is constantly growing our reach in international markets by working with our airline partners, the wholesale and retail travel trade network, securing new and innovative major events for NSW, and ensuring Sydney and NSW are top of mind through our digital, social and media campaigns and activities.

“It’s great to see such positive results coming out of India given Destination NSW is focussing on this emerging market with campaigns such as Jhappi Time, which is a digital marketing campaign to encourage families in India to visit loved ones in Sydney and NSW,” Mr Souris said.