Evidence base Research overview This plan has adopted a strong evidence-based approach and is demand-driven. It demonstrates the impact COVID-19 had on the GOR visitor economy, followed by forecasts to demonstrate post-COVID-19 recovery scenarios. Visitor data has been compiled using the National and International Visitor Survey (NVS and IVS) data published by Tourism Research Australia (TRA). The NVS and IVS provide visitation data based on ‘Statistical Area 2’ (SA2) boundaries. Every LGA in Australia is made up of one or more SA2s. The GOR region has 15 SA2s included within its boundary. As per the methodology applied by TRA for LGAs1, visitation data is averaged across three-year periods, rather than being provided on an annual basis. This minimises the impact of variability in estimates from year to year and provides more robust estimates. Single-year periods, however, have been used for COVID-19-impacted data (2019 – 2022) along with the first year of state-based recovery (2023). December YE data (unless otherwise specified) has been applied as this is the most recent iteration of data released by TRA via the NVS and IVS at the time of writing this report. International data has not been included for the period 2019 to 2023 because it is statistically unreliable due to small sample sizes. Data should start to be re-released by TRA and Visit Victoria over the next few quarterly periods, once the international sample base has been built back up to a reliable size. Once this has been achieved, international data should then be reincorporated back into this Plan to reflect all visitor markets to the GOR region. Reliance on a small visitor data sample size has resulted in official government statistics illustrating that visitor numbers are now back to pre-COVID levels. In discussions with GORT, Councils and industry, this is not the case; in fact, visitor numbers are still 15% lower than pre-COVID levels. This discrepancy is important to note, as it not only gives an inaccurate picture of recovery but can easily act as a handbrake on tourism development and investment due to conflicting signals being offered. visitor numbers lower than are still 15 percent pre-covid levels