New figures from the Commonwealth Government's International Visitor Survey show that Western Australia's business travel market is booming, leading to knock-on positive effects for the state.
In the December quarter of 2010, the business travel market grew by 42 percent to 33,000 over the three-month period.
Speaking on behalf of the Commonwealth Government, Senator Nick Sherry said: "These figures show WA’s impressive resources boom is also generating positive results for other sectors of the economy."
108,000 business travellers visited Western Australia in 2010, up 25 percent when compared with the previous year.
They also spent 23 percent more in 2010 than in 2009, while number of nights that overseas business visitors stayed in Western Australia rose by 22 percent.
Overall in 2010, business travel comprised over half of all arrivals into WA from abroad, which stood at a total of 212,000.
Martin Ferguson, Minister for Resources and Energy, called business travellers "an enormous opportunity for Western Australia", quoting an average business traveller spend figure of $1284 for food, drink and accommodation.
"The extra airline capacity announced this week allows both Australian and Chinese airlines to make even more flights into and out of Perth with an incentive to stopover at regional airports such as Broome," Ferguson added, referring to yesterday's memorandum of understanding with Chinese authorities.
Transport Minister Anthony Albanese announced the agreement, which outlines an increase of over 50% in the number of seats available between Australia and the PRC in the next year. It also provides for intermediate stops between larger cities in both countries.
Aviation journalist and travel columnist John took his first long-haul flight when he was eight weeks old and hasn't looked back since. Well, except when facing rearwards in business class.
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