Tourism industry executives blamed the strong Australian dollar for the slump in tourism revenues as foreign visitor spending declined to a four-year low of $2.63 billion in February.

The Bureau of Statistics noted that it is the lowest monthly level since December 2008, which represents a $100-million drop on demand for services such as plane trips and hotel accommodations, compared to 12 months earlier.

Besides discouraging foreign tourists, the strong Australian currency also made more Aussies opt for overseas holidays rather than spend their vacation in domestic destination. While foreign spend was down, Aussie spend overseas reached a record-high of $2.82 billion for the same month.

However, Australian Tourist Export Council Managing Director Felicia Mariani pointed out that other factors beyond the strong currency caused the changes in tourist flow and spending. It includes foreign governments' taxes on long-haul flights such as the levy imposed by Britain beginning April. There are fears that the European Union may follow UK's example.

Ms Mariani also blamed the relatively high wages in hotels for causing cost of running tourist-oriented establishments to rise.

Despite the lower foreign tourist spend, there was some strong growth in Asian tourist arrivals with an almost 20 per cent hike in visitors from Malaysia and some increase among Chinese visitors. Wotif.com Chief Executive Robbie Cooke said the number of Malaysian tourists have been increasing steadily while domestic destinations such as Cairns, Sydney, Gold Coast, Melbourne and the New South Wales North Coast also registered substantial increases in leisure bookings.

Sydney and Perth hotels enjoyed booking rates of over 85 per cent in the December quarter, but the Great Barrier Reef area logged only between 55 and 65 per cent hotel room bookings during the peak season from June to September.