Tourists continue to spend up big in Australia

Australia's tourism sector continues to attract a record number of international visitors, statistics released on Wednesday revealed.

The latest International Visitor Survey commissioned by Tourism Research Australia (TRA) revealed international visitors to Australia spent 37.9 billion Australian dollars (27.59 billion U.S. dollars) in the year ending March 2016.

The numbers reveal a significant increase on the previous year, up 17 percent or 5.4 billion Australian dollars (3.93 billion U.S. dollars).

Chinese tourists increased the amount they spent in Australia by 38 percent to 8.9 billion Australian dollars (6.47 billion U.S. dollars).

Their patronage to Australia also increased by 23 percent and as well the amount of nights they stayed in the nation by 15 percent.

New South Wales (NSW) state attracted the majority of international visitors out of any state and territory.

"NSW achieved a significant increase in international visitors to 3.6 million (up 8.9 percent), number of nights stayed rose to 86.9 million (up 10.5 percent)," NSW state tourism Stuart Ayres said.

"Visitors from China spent 2.6 billion Australian dollars (1.89 billion U.S. dollars), continuing incredible growth in this target market."

Queensland state tourism minister Kate Jones added China had become Queensland's largest international tourism market.

"China has overtaken New Zealand as the largest source of international tourists for the first time," Jones said.

"We saw 442,000 Chinese travellers coming to Queensland for the period ended March 2016, also an increase of 29 percent."