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Queensland tourism received an egg-citing boost over the Easter long weekend, with Gold Coast Airport setting new passenger number records for April.
Almost 25,000 people travelled through Gold Coast Airport (GCA) on Easter Monday - a new record for April, narrowly ahead of the 24,000 people who traversed the terminal on Thursday, 14 April.
The long weekend figures creeped closer to the all-time daily record for GCA, which was set prior to the onset of the pandemic on 04 January 2020 when 25,455 passengers either flew in or flew out in one day.
“We are anticipating busy weekends for the Anzac Day and May Day long weekends coming up, as more Australians start holidaying again and enjoy seeing their loved ones around the country,” Queensland Airports CEO Chris Mills said.
GCA is the main gateway for the Gold Coast - Australia’s 6th largest city which had a population of 620,518 in June 2019 according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
Offering holidaymakers easy access to the Southern Hemisphere’s highest concentration of theme parks, GCA also attracts tourists who wish to make use of the area’s 57km of coastline and 300 days of sunshine per annum.
According to Destination Gold Coast, the city welcomed 9.6 million visitors in 2021, who stayed for a combined 11.3 million nights and spent $3.5 billion.
Domestic overnight visitors to the Gold Coast reached 3.2 million, an improvement of 45.8 per cent on 2020, while day trip visitors grew 1.7 per cent for the year to 6.4 million visits. Intrastate domestic overnight travel welcomed 2.1 million visitors to the Gold Coast, up a 43.1 per cent on 2020, as COVID travel restrictions were eased.
There were angry scenes across many airports in Australia over the Easter break, with airports struggling to cope with staff shortages due, in part, to COVID isolation orders.
“It was a busy weekend, but things worked relatively well operationally,” Mills said in response to whether GCA experienced delays over the weekend.
“Thanks to anyone who travelled over this period for their patience.”
GCA received 21,000 passengers yesterday and expects more than 18,000 people to pass through the airport from today to Friday.
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