‘Cinderella’ of Australian tourism Scarborough primed to ride international tourism wave

“The Gold Coast is investing heavily in attracting Chinese [tourists and] their efforts have paid off with China’s largest outbound tour operator, Ctrip, announcing that the Gold Coast was the fourth population destination in the world following a survey of 3.5 million consumers,” Mr Peard said.

“This award [is] following a $15 million investment in the mainland Chinese market by Gold Coast Tourism.”

While these announcements would see the Gold Coast benefitting, Mr Peard also mentioned Western Australia would also have the opportunity to reap this boom.

“This process has started with increased flights from China to Perth. During the last week, for example, China Southern Airlines will increase services from Guangzhou to Perth from four to five times a week using a bigger Airbus A 330 aircraft that will add 43,888-seat capacity,” Mr Peard said.

“Last year there was a 15 per cent increase in Chinese nationals travelling through Perth airport, and Chinese tourists are traditionally high-yield visitors spending on average more than $5,000 each in WA.

“Scarborough is poised to take advantage of this increased Chinese tourism with a stunning beach that rivals the Surfers Paradise beach.”

Mr Peard described Scarborough as previously being referred to as the “Cinderella” of Australian tourism due to “conservative planning rules that discouraged private sector investment”, but recent flexible planning rules and planning by the state government to renovate the Scarborough beach front are set to change this.

“Currently, the median house price in Scarborough is just $760,000 even though this beachside suburb is just 12 kilometres from the Perth CBD,” Mr Peard said.

“The median house price in Scarborough is less than half that of nearby Trigg ($1,630,000) which is further away from the CBD.

“As a result of this massive new tourism led investment, combined with new government infrastructure spending, Scarborough will become a major property hotspot in Perth over the coming decade.”