Tasmania tourism growth surges: Chinese flock to the Australian island state

Australia's fastest-growing tourist destination is our smallest state, the sleepy island of half a million people that some mainlanders still mock for being a backwater.

That's not deterring international visitors. Overseas tourist spending in Tasmania jumped 31 per cent in 2017 and has surged 90 per cent in the past three years as visitors flock to the state off the southern coast of Australia.

Chinese tourists remain the biggest spenders in Australia, government data released on Wednesday showed. Their love affair with Tasmania started in 2013 when model Zhang Xinyu posted a selfie from Shanghai cuddling a teddy bear she bought at a tourist attraction in the state. They became even more enamoured after a visit from President Xi Jinping the following year.

But it's not only international visitors that are drawn to Australia's smallest state and most southern city – domestic visitors are also drawn to this former penal colony. Tasmania was named among the nation's most desired places to visit for young and old, according a Roy Morgan Holiday Tracking Survey last year. The survey found 1.75 million people had Hobart on their wish list, making it the county's fastest growing capital as a desired domestic travel destination.

Tasmania first emerged on global tourists' bucket lists with the arrival of the world-class MONA museum in January 2011. Its location and concept as a world-class modern art museum became a key reason Hobart was named by Lonely Planet as one of the world's best 10 cities to visit in 2013.

The travel guide company cited the museum, while giving compliments to the city's food and natural beauty, as one the reasons to visit – and as the Lonely Planet effect goes, Hobart, and thus Tasmania, was on the travel radar for many local and international travellers.

In addition to MONA, visitors to Tasmania can enjoy world heritage-listed wilderness attractions, including Cradle Mountain and Lake St Clair National Park, which visitors can reach on the famed Overland Track, award-wining wineries such as those in Launceston and Bay of Fires, a growing food scene that includes modern Australian and Southern American, and some of the cleanest air in Australia (that supposedly can be bought in a bottle).