The latest figures from Tourism Research Australia covering overall international visitation to Australia as well as the latest business events statistics covering both domestic and international activity were released today.
The number of international visitors to Australia for all purposes – including leisure and business events – has inched up another two per cent towards a full post-COVID recovery.
In 2024, there were 7.6 million trips by international visitors to Australia, representing 88 per cent of visitation for the year to December 2019. In the previous release from Tourism Research Australia, covering the year to September 2024, international visitation by number of trips was 86 per cent recovered to 2019 levels.
However, international visitors are staying significantly longer than they used to, with nights spent in Australia up seven per cent on December 2019 levels to 294.9 million nights. The latest trip length stats also represent a jump on the September figures, which were up five per cent on the year to September 2019, at 287 million nights.
Overall business travel to Australia still has a way to go to recover to pre-pandemic levels, with 779,000 trips taken over the year to December 2024, representing 77 per cent of the level of business travellers to Australia in 2019. In the overall mix of travellers, business travellers made up 10 per cent in 2024, where in 2019 they made up 12 per cent.
In terms of business events visitation and activity, significant declines in delegate spend appear to have stopped, with spend in Australia for the 2024 calendar year sitting at $19.6 billion. The previous available figure for the 13 months to September 2024 was $19.8 billion, which, given it covered an extra month, suggests that business events spend has likely risen slightly.
This follows a fall of more than a billion dollars in business events delegate spend between the end of 2023 and mid-2024 when comparing figures year on year.
Of the $19.6 billion covering both domestic and international delegate spend, $2.5 billion was spent by international delegates, while $17.1 billion was spent by domestic delegates, the vast majority – $16.2 billion – by overnight domestic travellers to business events.
In terms of business events visitor numbers, there were 19,769,000 event attendees, both domestic and international. Of these, 783,000 were international attendees.
Australia’s top three international source markets for business events delegates remained the same – New Zealand then the USA followed by China, but both the US and China are closing the gap on New Zealand, with 160,000 delegates travelling from New Zealand – down from 166,000 in the year to September, while 91,000 travelled from the US, up from 86,000 and 66,000 travelled from China, up from 57,000, representing a near 16 per cent rise in Chinese delegates.
There was some change in the other seven countries that make up the remainder of the top 10 business events source markets. Singapore climbed to fourth spot, while Indonesia fell out of the top 10 and was replaced by Vietnam.
Australia’s top business events source markets are slightly different to the top five markets when all reasons for travel are included: overall, New Zealand still comes in first, while China, the US, the UK and India follow. India is the only one of the top five markets to have exceeded pre-COVID visitation figures to Australia – there were 12 per cent more Indian travellers to Australia in 2024 compared to 2019.
