The reopening of Queensland's borders at the end of 2021 ushered in the busiest year on record for one of the state's most sought-after destinations, with interstate travellers rushing in to relax by the beach.
New tourism data found Noosa and the wider Sunshine Coast experienced their highest number of overnight visitors ever in 2022, with 4.2 million trips pumping more than $4 billion into the region.
The tourism industry has been on a rollercoaster since COVID-19 arrived in Australia, enduring snap lockdowns for the first two years, before Queensland reopened its borders in late 2021.
Brent Chong from Tourism Noosa said once there was certainty, the bookings began coming in, spreading more than $1.5 billion into the town over the 12 months.
"We've never seen that before … the bulk of that spend did come from interstate visitors," Mr Chong said.
"They contributed about $908 million, so that's about 40 per cent up from their pre-COVID levels."
And as Noosa's popularity broke records, the influx of people spread out across the region.
"The numbers suggest they might have been shoulder-to-shoulder — but we had a lot of visitors exploring other areas of the Noosa region as well," Mr Chong said.
The figures from Tourism Research Australia found almost one-third of room bookings across the Sunshine Coast region, including Noosa, came from interstate visitors.
'We just couldn't accommodate them'
In the thick of things was Seahaven Noosa resort manager Allan Golley.
He said the years of stop-start travel restrictions meant many regular visitors were forced to repeatedly postpone their holidays to the Hastings Street hotel.
But in 2022, they could finally make the trip — and so could everyone else.
"Once those borders opened, we definitely did have a rush of bookings for the whole year," Mr Golley said.
"It wasn't just for any particular period, it was right through."
The resort manager said unfortunately, he turn away some loyal guests.
"We just couldn't accommodate them," he said.
"That actually then increased the demand and … saw the booking window pushed out further.
"They go 'OK, if I can't come and stay … about February, March next year?'."
Mr Golley said so far, 2023 had been a slightly slower year for Noosa, possibly due to the rising cost of living.
"We are starting to see that demand from last year has dropped," he said.
"Even though it has been really good over the last 12 months, we're not really expecting it to continue."
