Number of Ballarat visitors still lower than year before pandemic

The latest visitor economy data for Ballarat has been released by Tourism Research Australia.

An encouraging 3.7 million domestic visitors came to the region to the year ending June 30th.

However, that’s still 10 per cent less than in 2019, before the pandemic.

Chairman of Tourism Midwest Victoria, John Pandazopolous, says spending has topped a billion dollars.

“We’ve certainly got a record spend and we’ve got more domestic visitors than we did pre-COVID,” he said.

“Our spend reached nearly $1.1 billion, but also we’ve increased our share of overnight stay, so 30 per cent of our tourists actually stay in Ballarat-region accommodation.”