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By Mark McDonnell
Happily memories of Covid lockdowns are receding, but the even better news is local businesses are recovering strongly from the covid downturn of three years ago.
The latest figures from Tourism Research Australia show big gains for the Hawkesbury in visitor numbers across the board.
The low point was in 2021-22, during the worst of the lockdowns. Since then both international and domestic visitors to our community have increased strongly.
In 2022-23 there were over one million domestic day trips to the Hawkesbury recorded, with almost half of all those people staying overnight (445,000 for the year).
In 2023-24, almost 185,000 international visitors are also recorded as staying overnight in the Hawkesbury, which means that for every 10 Australian resident visitors staying over in our area, another four people from overseas visited and stayed here as well.
When you consider what the total population of Hawkesbury is, these results are really impressive. In the 2021 census, the Bureau of Statistics registered 67,207 people living in our communities (now closer to 69,000). This means that there are almost three times as many international visitors staying overnight during the year, as there are people living here permanently.
When it comes to Australian residents visiting us, the numbers are even greater, proving that tourism has emerged as one of the largest and most important industries in the Hawkesbury today.
Compared with 10 years ago, the growth has been consistent and noticeable, apart from the once in a generation downturn of Covid. For example, domestic day trips in 2013-14 were around 677,000, so the latest figures show a total increase of about 50% over the last decade. For domestic overnight stays, the increase is 35% over the same period.
This spectacular increase in day trips compares with much lower levels for New South Wales as a whole, where the overall increase is only 14%. Overnight stays by Australian residents across the whole State is in line with the Hawkesbury’s 35% uplift.
When we look at the data for the years just before the pandemic struck, we can see the strong recovery of recent times has even further to run, as the visitor numbers still haven’t recaptured the highs witnessed in 2018 and 2019. Published data suggest well above half a million overnight visitors (550,000 - 600,000) was witnessed in those years, so there is good reason to expect we are on trend for a similarly sized influx to be achieved over the next few years, all going well.
Small businesses across the Hawkesbury benefit directly from these trends, particularly in the hospitality, tourism and accommodation sectors. Cafes, restaurants and other retail outlets also benefit from improved sales as visitors flock to the Hawkesbury to enjoy its fresh air, stunning scenery and relaxed lifestyle, and patronise our shops while they are here.
The extent to which many different types of businesses benefit from both international and domestic visitors can be seen with the way local orchards have pivoted to take advantage of the upswing in local tourism.
Gone are the days when family run farms had everyone involved in the laborious task of apple picking come harvest time. These days, “pick your own” has become incredibly popular, as a fun outing for families travelling up from Sydney for the day and giving the “self service” economy quite a boost.
Local growers report strong and continuing interest from day trippers and other tourists, keen to get the freshest produce straight from the tree into their shopping baskets and back home, where they can continue to savour the best the Hawkesbury has to offer for weeks to come.
Agri-tourism takes on different forms and the apple growers catering to local day trippers is just one example. At the other end of the spectrum are international travellers looking for a more in-depth understanding of local producer activities - from cultivation, production, to sales and marketing.
Hawkesbury Council’s published analysis shows the area’s agricultural economic output to be valued at $227 million in 2021-22. On a State-wide view, the two types of agriculture that rank highest are vegetables and “nurseries and cut flowers” both at about 17% of total NSW output.
Turf farms are easily the largest contributor to the “nurseries and cut flowers” segment, where Hawkesbury accounts for a huge 61% of the NSW total output, worth around $90 million.
The break-up of “vegetables” also reveals the Hawkesbury is dominant in two key products: mushrooms and herbs, where our area produces more than half the NSW total output. These two types of vegetables alone account for almost two-thirds of the Hawkesbury’s $109 million in annual vegetable production.
Outside of agriculture, the largest industry in the Hawkesbury is construction, which employs more people in our area than anything else, with over 7000 local jobs, according to the National Economics (NIEIR modelling). This sector is also likely to benefit from increased demand for housing and infrastructure projects in the area.
