New research from the Australian National University has found surfing injects almost $3 billion into Australia's economy each year.Researchers believe there should be more legislative protection in place for surf breaks in Australia.
It found the average adult surfer spent $3,700 annually on travel and equipment, which can include everything from funds for accommodation, petrol and parking down to sunscreen, wetsuits and surfboards."What we're trying to get across is an understanding that waves and the surf breaks that generate those waves are valuable," ANU survey lead Ana Manero said.
"There's only a few waves across NSW and in Victoria that have any form of legal protection … so what we're trying to do with this study is document the value that this asset provides." "A new surfboard is $800 to a thousand bucks, a wetsuit's 600 bucks ... that three-and-a-half grand would disappear pretty quickly i reckon."That data was aggregated to a population of 727,382 adult surfers in Australia, as reported by the Australian Sports Commission.