INTERSTATE AND INTERNATIONAL VISITORS

Ms BETTISON (Ramsay) (14:57): My question is to the Minister for Tourism. Can the minister inform the house about the increase in visitors and flights to South Australia?

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL (Mawson—Minister for Tourism, Minister for Recreation and Sport) (14:57): I thank the member for her question. There are some good figures out today which show that national visitors to South Australia increased 2.3 per cent in the past 12 months, which is a great result for South Australia. Also on the statistics, there are some great signs for the regions. A lot of those trips were people going out into regional South Australia, and that is something that we have been working very hard on in the past 18 months.

We have had the Best Backyard campaigns, and people would have seen the promotion for the Eyre Peninsula and other regions. We have just been out filming up in Clare, Yorke Peninsula, Flinders Ranges and the Fleurieu, and we are really trying to encourage people in South Australia to take a holiday at home. It is a great state, and there are some areas with great natural beauty. There are also things that you can only do in a few parts of the world and one of those is in the member for Flinders' seat—to go face to face with the great white sharks at Port Lincoln which is one of only two or three places in the world you can do that.

It is staggering that only 4 per cent of Adelaide people have ever been to Eyre Peninsula. So we are really pumping the marketing in to get people out of Adelaide and into the regions, because we know that it brings about prosperity to the regions, it brings about jobs and it is great for our regional economies and our wider state economy.

Last week, the national figures were released for overseas visitors to South Australia, and it is great to see an 8.9 per cent increase on those figures. So more people from around the world are discovering South Australia and coming here to enjoy it. Again, that is no accident; we have been working very hard in marketing South Australia to the rest of the world.

We have also attracted a lot of new international flights into South Australia, and you will see that, by the time Jetstar begin their direct service to Adelaide in December, we will have seen an 83 per cent increase in the number of international seats coming directly into Adelaide—an 83 per cent increase since the Premier became Premier in October two years ago.

What we are now doing is working with those airlines. AirAsia X will be flying in here on 31 October for the first time. They fly in from 80 feed destinations throughout Asia. They are very important for us. It is the first time we have had a low-cost international airline flying into Adelaide. We know that people have previously left Adelaide to go to Melbourne to get on these cheap flights, and what we are doing now is having them coming direct into Adelaide, bringing people from their five destinations in India, their nine destinations in China, and other parts of Malaysia and Indonesia. We know that people will travel differently on a low-cost airline. People will come down here for an arts event, for example. They will come for just a couple of days because they have a cheaper flight, so it is terrific to see that.

The infrastructure that this government is investing in—over half a billion dollars into the Adelaide Oval—is going to be a game changer for visitors to South Australia. We are going to have 22 matches of AFL football there. I have been over talking to Collingwood, to Carlton, to the Brisbane Lions, to the Gold Coast Suns and to Geelong, as well as the AFL, to get them to bring their corporates here.

These people are the CEOs and the CFOs of major Australian corporations. What we want to do is get them to come to Adelaide to watch the football. They have not been interested in coming to Footy Park, but when they come here and see that Adelaide has changed, then we want them to take the next step to set up an office here and to actually believe in South Australia in the same way that this government and the people of South Australia believe in our state.

We are seeing some confidence with investment in South Australia from the private sector. Last week I opened the Quest on Franklin apartment building, and that follows on from Quest's investment in Whyalla, with the great apartments up there. They have also opened an apartment complex out at Mawson Lakes, and they announced last week that they are going to build an apartment complex down at Port Adelaide. So, there is some great confidence from the private sector in South Australia. Obviously the government has been on board for many years to improve South Australia and to make sure that people from interstate and overseas come here—

The SPEAKER: Alas, the member's time has expired.