Australian Casinos drawing record crowds

Australia is a land of plenty: blessed white-sand beaches and expanses of breathtaking scenery, full of friendly folk (and good-looking ones, too, if we say so ourselves...), and home to some of the most iconic natural and man-made tourist attractions on the planet.

Uluru and the Sydney Opera House would likely feature on any must-see list, and with good reason. Youd think that it would be any tourism-board executives dream. But there are some other destinations that were quite excited to see featuring high on the Euromonitor International list of the worlds most-visited sites the Australian casino resorts that we think are the match of any in the world. And the figures would seem to back that up.

Now its true that there are some criticisms of the Euromonitor figures, though mostly by tourism executives associated with rival destinations, weve noticed. You can be sure that the people at Crown Casinos and Echo Entertainment like to repeat the figures as often as possible: nearly 11 million visitors crossed the threshold at Crown Melbourne in 2010, with very nearly as many visiting Jupiters on the Gold Coast and the Star in Sydney drawing in about 9 million.

To put those figures into perspective, the Opera House saw less than 8 million visitors. Euromonitor themselves will attest that its notoriously difficult to count the numbers of visitors to casinos, but wed like to know how exactly they measure any of it.

What counts as a visit to the Opera House? Weve never been inside it, but weve had a walk along the waterfront: does that count? Either way, the trend is difficult to argue with (and the statistics are someone elses headache...). What is clear is the popularity of Australias casino resorts.

The owners of Australias first-rate casino resorts have been telling anyone wholl listen what a significant contribution theyve been making to the economy, and the tourism figures seem to back up the claim.

The growing wealth of the Chinese middle class, and its well-publicised enjoyment of a Casino Games bet, has been squarely in the sights of Australias casino owners, and they will be pleased to see that the numbers of Chinese tourists recently outstripped visitors from the UK to become Australias second-biggest source of visitors (behind the Kiwis more than a million of them every year).

Those same Chinese visitors are already having the most economic impact of any single country: an estimated AU$3billion contribution to the economy. And its not just the Chinese: tourists from the US are heading over here in greater numbers than ever before. If theyre making the trip to visit Australias casino resorts, we cant blame them, because theyre excellent...

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Australian Casinos drawing record crowds

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