The sales and marketing manager said the company – which takes tourists on day trips to Green Island, about an hour off the coast of Cairns – now has 11 Chinese-speaking staff to cater for the growing market.

"That explosion that we had in the 1980s from the Japanese is now here with the Chinese market. We now have 1 million Chinese tourists coming into Australia every year," Ms Davies told The AFR Weekend.

"In Cairns, China has well and truly taken over the Japanese market. It would be well and truly double, if not getting towards triple. A lot of people have this mis-conception the Chinese is a low-yield market. We certainly haven't found that in our experience."

The company has installed Wi-Fi onto its boats specifically to tap into the expectation of Chinese tourists that they will be able to instantly up-load photos of their reef adventures straight onto the Internet.

"In China there is free Wi-Fi everywhere so it is expected. They come back to the boat and use [free Chinese messaging app] WeChat to upload photos of their trip. It's certainly been a good selling point," Ms Davies said.

North Queensland, with its big blue skies and natural wonders, including the Great Barrier Reef, is an obvious attraction for Chinese visitors who mostly come from large, polluted cities.

Green Island is an attractive destination for mostly non-swimming Chinese tourists, given they can spend the day on the beach or take glass-bottom boat tours rather than a longer trip to pontoons on the outer-reef.

Like Japanese tourists before them, the Chinese market is evolving from group travel to independent travellers or families, often with three generations in tow, who stay longer and spend more.


International visitor numbers released this week showed there were 1 million Chinese tourists in the past year, accounting for almost one-quarter (23 per cent) of total trip spend.

Australian Bureau of Statistics trend figures released on Friday showed Chinese visitors increased by 19.4 per cent in the year to April.

Queensland Tourism Minister Kate Jones said China had become Queensland's largest international tourism market, overtaking the traditional market of New Zealand.

"While China has recorded the highest level of expenditure to the state in recent years this was the first time it had also been the largest source of total international visitors," she said.

Tourism Australia managing director John O'Sullivan said there had been strong growth in the south-east Asian market, including the resurgence of Japanese tourists, but China remained the key market, worth $9 billion a year.

"The tourism industry across the world discovered China in the last four years. China, in terms of growth and size, is the headline market for us," he said.

"What's really important is the type of Chinese tourist we are targeting. We've moved away from the groups to the independent traveller which really increase the yield we are getting."

In 2011, tourists could fly direct into Australia from five Chinese cities. It's now 10 cities. The key destinations for Chinese tourists are Sydney, Melbourne, Gold Coast and Cairns.


The lower dollar and increased aviation access has helped reinvigorate the tourism sector – which now employs 1 million people directly and indirectly – and the national economy after the end of the mining boom.

"Tourism generally has become a much more important sector to the Australian economy. We've got record numbers of arrivals and we haven't seen growth figures like this since the Sydney Olympic Games," Mr O'Sullivan said.

The Tourism Australia boss played down the impact of recent reports on coral bleaching in the Great Barrier Reef saying the main tourist areas remained "relatively unaffected".

Tourism has emerged as an election issue in the federal campaign as Australia moves away from a resources-based economy. Labor leader Bill Shorten this week promised to take $1 billion from the Coalition's Northern Australia Infrastructure Fund and allocate it to tourism infrastructure projects.