International tourists spent more than 41.3 billion Australian dollars (32 billion US dollars) in Australia last year, with a quarter of that amount coming from Chinese visitors, the government said Wednesday.
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Tourism Minister Steven Ciobo said the figure represented an increase of 6 per cent on the previous year and an additional 2.2 billion dollars to the economy. The latest figures from the Australian government's International Visitors' Survey show some 8.1 million overseas tourists visited Down Under last year, an increase of 6 per cent compared to 2016.
The largest group of visitors by country were from China. Their number increased from 1.11 million to 1.25 million within a year. They alone spent 10.4 billion dollars, a 14 percent increase on 2016.
Visitor numbers from India, as well as the money they spent, recorded the strongest growth, with both increasing by 16 per cent 2017. The island of Tasmania enjoyed the strongest growth in the country, with spending by international tourists surging 31 per cent during the year and up 90 per cent over the past three years, according to the government data.
Three million tourists visited the Sydney Opera House, the top destination in Australia for overseas visitors, while 2.7 million visited the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Outside Sydney, 842,000 overseas visitors toured the Great Barrier Reef and 192,000 visited the iconic Uluru rock formation in the Australian outback.
is/ch (dpa)
10 world-class music venues
Major stars and great operas grace their stages. The world's best orchestras can be heard in them. Perfect acoustics and magnificent architecture are the signature features of modern concert halls worldwide.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/C. Charisius
Sydney Opera House, Australia
The creator of this visionary opera house, the Danish architect Jørn Utzon, had to resign before it was finished. Its construction was overshadowed by scandals and skyrocketing costs. It took 14 years before it opened in 1973. The dramatic story is now to be filmed. The opera house was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2007. Six years of renovation started in May, 2017.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/D. Naupold
Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Germany
Hamburg's latest landmark opened officially with an inaugural concert on January 11th. Its concert hall is detached from the rest of the building so that no sounds from the port outside can penetrate it. The architects Herzog & de Meuron built a glass structure on top of an old warehouse. It took nearly a decade to complete. Other modern concert halls have also captured worldwide attention.
Image: T. Rätzke
Guangzhou Opera House, China
The buildings rise like giant pebbles ground smooth by the waters of the Pearl River. Many fans of the opera and architecture consider this structure by the Iraqi-born British architect Zaha Hadid to be as groundbreaking for 21st century opera house design as Charles Garnier's Paris Opera was for the 19th century and Jørn Utzon's Sydney Opera House for the 20th.
Image: picture-alliance/ANN
National Centre for the Performing Arts, China
Surrounded by an artificial lake, the "Giant Egg" or "Water Drop" is in Beijing, not far from Tiananmen Square. The French architect Paul Andreu designed the Chinese national theatre in 1999 as an ellipsoid dome of titanium and glass. Its three performance halls seat a total of 5500 people. Audience members enter through a hallway that runs underneath the lake.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/L. Xiashun
Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia, Spain
In his home town of Valencia, architect Santiago Calatrava created an entire city for arts and science: the Ciudad de las Artes y de las Ciencias. Here, the opera house stands next to the Oceanographic Aquarium, the planetarium and the science museum. The bold design is dominated by the two steel shells that form the roof. Is it a building or a sculpture? A giant swan or a whale?
Image: picture alliance/dpa/M. Bruque
Walt Disney Concert Hall Los Angeles, USA
This is the home venue of the Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestra, whose current music director is Gustavo Dudamel. The idea for the stainless steel structure, with its undulating and angled forms, came from Frank Gehry, who presented his building at its opening in 2003 like a "huge flower" to its sponsor, Lillian Disney, Walt Disney's widow. The concert hall is named after the film producer.
Image: picture-alliance/Photoshot
Esplanade Theatres on the Bay, Singapore
Two rounded frames fitted with more than 7000 triangular glass sunshades curve like the backs of beetles over two spaces. The locals call the buildings "the durian," after the spiky tropical fruit. The Singapore Symphony Orchestra regularly plays in the concert hall, which seats 1600. There is a separate 2000-seat theatre for plays and dance performances.
Image: picture-alliance/robertharding/A. Hall
Konzerthaus Harpa Reykjavík, Iceland
Artist Olafur Eliasson loves light in all its varieties so he designed this building with a facade of honeycombed, partly colored glass building blocks. By day they fracture the light and at night they reflect it colorfully when the building lights up in changing colors like a kaleidoscope. Harpa is the local term for harp as well as the name given to the first month of summer in Iceland.
Seven bridges cross the River Tyne, connecting Gateshead with Newcastle. The Millennium Bridge stretches right over the Sage Gateshead concert hall - which is named after its sponsor. The entire building lights up. Designed by Sir Norman Foster, it was opened in 2004. The music center is open for 16 hours a day, 364 days of the year.
Image: picture alliance/Robertharding
Cultural Center Heydar Aliyev, Azerbaijan
This cultural center in the city of Baku on the Caspian Sea, named after the father of the current president, represents the desire for renewal and modernization in the former Soviet republic. Architect Zaha Hadid designed it in 2007 as a flowing structure amid the monotonous modern high-rise buildings.