Byron is not the highest-yielding council on the northern rivers. Ballina is
Byron earns the most tourism money of the four northern rivers councils in this dataset, $936 million against Tweed's $582 million, Ballina's $538 million and Clarence Valley's $478 million. But per visitor Ballina earns more than Byron, $537 a trip against $527. Per night it is not close: Ballina $315 against Byron $225, and in commercial accommodation $406 against $280, both of them the highest of the four by a wide margin. Byron's lead is built on volume and on a fourth night, not on getting more out of each visitor. And Tweed takes more visitors than Byron does.
Tourism Research Australia publishes a visitor profile for every local government area on one set of definitions, which is the only way these councils can be set beside each other without arguing about method. Every figure below is its two-year average for 2023 to 2024, and the tourism business counts are a different basis again, flagged where they appear. The totals are the dashboard's own. We have calculated nothing.
The four councils
| Total | Byron | Tweed | Ballina | Clarence Valley |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Visitors (000) | 1,775 | 1,807 | 1,003 | 1,171 |
| Nights (000) | 3,640 | 2,289 | 1,423 | 2,149 |
| Average nights | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| Expenditure ($M) | $936 | $582 | $538 | $478 |
| Spend per trip | $527 | $322 | $537 | $408 |
| Spend per night | $225 | $195 | $315 | $196 |
| Spend per night, commercial accommodation | $280 | $249 | $406 | $257 |
| Tourism businesses | 1,203 | 1,277 | 678 | 588 |
Start with Byron and Tweed, because they hold the visitor count almost still. Tweed takes 1,807,000 visitors and Byron 1,775,000, and Byron earns $936 million to Tweed's $582 million. Same number of people through the door, in round terms, and a different business entirely: $527 a trip against $322. Tweed also has the most tourism businesses of the four, 1,277 of them, and the lowest spend per trip.
Then look at Ballina, which is where the usual framing breaks. Ballina takes the fewest visitors of the four and the fewest nights, and it earns more per visitor than Byron does. Per night it earns $315 against Byron's $225, and in commercial accommodation $406 against $280. On these numbers Ballina is the most expensive place to spend a night on the northern rivers, and it is not close.
Byron still earns the most money overall, and the table shows exactly why: it has both the most nights, 3,640,000, and the only four-night average of the four. Volume and duration, not yield per night.
Where they draw from, and Byron's international column
| Origin | Byron | Tweed | Ballina | Clarence Valley |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Interstate visitors | 517 | 457 | 240 | 258 |
| Interstate nights | 1,335 | 1,252 | 680 | 856 |
| Intrastate visitors | 274 | 211 | 183 | 363 |
| Intrastate nights | 952 | 752 | 629 | 1,180 |
Byron and Tweed both draw more domestic overnight visitors from interstate than from the rest of New South Wales, which is unusual and is what sitting under the Queensland border buys you. Clarence Valley is the reverse: 363,000 intrastate against 258,000 interstate, and more intrastate nights than any of the four.
The international column is Byron's alone. It is the only one of the four with publishable numbers against all three of its top markets: the United Kingdom at 43,000 visitors and 244,000 nights, Germany at 18,000 and 124,000, and Scandinavia at 12,000 and 49,000. Tweed has a publishable figure only for New Zealand, 11,000 visitors and 62,000 nights, and Clarence Valley only for New Zealand at 3,000 and 31,000. Every one of Ballina's three top international markets is np. So the council that earns the most per night on this coast does it with essentially no measurable international trade.
np is not zero, and it is doing a lot of work in this article. Tourism
Research Australia defines it as
Data is not publishable as the survey error is too high for practical purposes
. It
means the survey cannot support a number for that cell in that area, not that nobody came.
Business travel is np for all four councils, so nothing here says anything
about business tourism on the northern rivers, and the "other" category is np for all four as
well. Where we say a market is np we mean the figure is unavailable, not absent.
Reason for visit
| Reason | Byron | Tweed | Ballina | Clarence Valley |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Holiday | 1,209 | 881 | 341 | 547 |
| Visiting friends and relatives | 409 | 549 | 361 | 362 |
| Business | np | np | np | np |
| Other | np | np | np | np |
Byron is holiday-led by roughly three to one. Ballina is the only one of the four where visiting friends and relatives outnumbers holiday travel, 361,000 against 341,000. That sits oddly beside its being the highest-yielding council per night, because visiting friends and relatives is normally the cheaper kind of trip, and we cannot resolve it from this dataset: the profiles do not report spend by reason for visit.
Tourism businesses
| Size | Byron | Tweed | Ballina | Clarence Valley |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Non-employing | 568 | 603 | 316 | 213 |
| 1 to 4 | 318 | 336 | 185 | 200 |
| 5 to 19 | 228 | 271 | 131 | 141 |
| 20 or more | 91 | 73 | 44 | 29 |
| Total | 1,203 | 1,277 | 678 | 588 |
Tweed leads every size band except the largest, where Byron has 91 businesses employing
twenty or more people against Tweed's 73. These counts sit on a different basis from everything
above: Tourism Research Australia notes they are
based on selected (tourism) ANZISCs from the ABS in the year ending June 2024
, a point in
time from the business register rather than a survey average, and they count firms in
tourism-related categories, much of whose trade serves residents rather than visitors.
Three northern rivers councils are not in this dataset at all. Tourism Research Australia publishes a profile for Byron, Tweed, Ballina and Clarence Valley. It publishes none for Lismore, Richmond Valley or Kyogle, which we confirmed by searching the dashboard's own local government area filter for each of them on 29 August 2026. Lismore is the region's largest inland centre, so nothing here describes the northern rivers as a whole and it should not be read that way.
How this sits with our earlier piece, and why the numbers must not be mixed. We reported in August that Byron's difference from its neighbours is almost entirely international, and fifteen years old, using economy.id's visitor-nights series for the same four councils. This article uses a different publisher, a different collection and a different reference period, and it measures money where that one measured nights. The two agree on the shape of Byron's international trade. They are not comparable figure for figure and we have not compared them. What this dataset adds is the yield question, which visitor nights alone cannot answer, and on that question the answer is not Byron.
Sources
- Tourism Research Australia, Local government area profiles (interactive dashboard; the Byron, Tweed, Ballina and Clarence Valley profiles each read 29 August 2026): all visitor, night, average night, expenditure, spend per trip, spend per night and spend per night in commercial accommodation figures for the four areas including the totals; the interstate and intrastate domestic overnight visitors and nights; the top international markets and the np entries against them; the split of visitors by reason for visit; the tourism business counts by employment size; the absence of any profile for Lismore, Richmond Valley and Kyogle; and the dashboard's own data notes, being that the data is a two year average from 2023 to 2024, that np means data is not publishable as the survey error is too high for practical purposes, and that the business count is based on selected tourism ANZSIC categories from the ABS in the year ending June 2024.
- Our earlier report, Byron's difference from its neighbours is almost entirely international, for the economy.id visitor-nights series discussed in the note above. Referenced for its finding, not for its figures, which are on a different basis.
How we did this. Read directly from Tourism Research Australia's local government area profiles dashboard on 29 August 2026, selecting each of the four councils in turn and reading the rendered profile. Every number in the tables is the dashboard's own published figure, including the totals, which we read rather than calculated. We have calculated nothing in this article: where we compare two councils we have printed both figures and let the reader see the gap. The reference period is the dashboard's stated two-year average for 2023 to 2024, except the tourism business counts, which it attributes to ABS data for the year ending June 2024. Where the dashboard prints np we have reproduced np and explained it rather than treating it as zero, which matters more than usual here because business travel is np for all four councils. We checked for profiles for Lismore, Richmond Valley and Kyogle using the dashboard's own area filter and found none. We have not contacted Tourism Research Australia or any of the four councils.
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