The data covers the quarter to March 2024 and the year to March.
Spend in Australia by international visitors is at $30.9 billion for the year to March, which is 101 per cent of 2019 levels, however the number of trips to Australia by international visitors is 7.2 million – which is 84 per cent of pre-pandemic levels.
This means there’s plenty of room for international visitation and spend in the visitor economy to boom, bringing international money into Australia.
Trips by international visitors appear to be longer, given the collective total of nights spent in Australia for the year to March by international visitors has very nearly fully recovered, despite there being fewer visitors. The total number of international visitor nights sits at 266.7 million, which is 99 per cent of 2019 levels.
Australia’s top five international visitor markets are New Zealand, followed by China, the USA, the United Kingdom and India.
Of these, India is the only one to show growth in visitor numbers compared to before the pandemic, with the number of Indian visitors tracking at 114 per cent of 2019 levels.
The New Zealand market has very nearly recovered to pre-COVID numbers, with visitors to March at 96 per cent of 2019 levels. The US has shown the next best recovery, with 88 per cent of the number of trips taken in 2019, and the UK just behind at 86 per cent.
Showing the importance of the China market to Australia, despite China rising to be Australia’s second largest visitor market in the latest results, Chinese visitors for the year to March are at just 51 per cent of what they were in 2019.
The China market was by far the biggest in terms of spend, at $.7.2 billion. New Zealand and the US tied for next biggest spenders, quite some way behind China, with visitors from these two spending $2.1 billion per country. The UK was close behind this, with a spend of $2 billion.
In terms of the international visitor recovery by state and territory, South Australia has emerged as the leader, as the only region of Australia to have achieved growth in the number of trips compared to 2019. Visitors to South Australia are currently at 102 per cent of 2019 levels, with the next best recovery being in Western Australia – recovered to 85 per cent of pre-COVID levels – closely followed by New South Wales at 84 per cent.
NSW continues to welcome the most international visitors, followed by Victoria and Queensland.
Compared to the December quarter, international spend has increased in every state and territory except the Northern Territory, where spend has slipped backwards significantly, from 98 per cent of pre-COVID levels in the year to December 2023 to 83 per cent of pre-COVID levels in the year to March 2024.
Four states have recorded spend growth compared to pre-pandemic – Western Australia, South Australia, NSW and Queensland – with South Australia’s spend – like its visitor quantity – recording the best growth compared to the state’s performance pre-pandemic.
Domestic travel has grown slightly over the year to March, with overnight spend and the number of overnight trips both up one per cent. However, the overall number of domestic visitor nights has fallen by two per cent.
While the NT fared poorly in the international visitor market, domestically, things look better, with the territory being the best performer in March 2024 quarter, compared to the March 2023 quarter.
The number of trips to the NT was up 19 per cent, while spend was up a huge 114 per cent.
The only other region to record increases in both metrics domestically was NSW, which had a six per cent jump in trips and a three per cent jump in spend.
New business events data has not been publicly released, although the most recent figures, released in March, showed in the year to December 2023, business events delegates spent $20.9 billion in Australia, with $2.6 billion being spent by international delegates, making this segment a major contributor to visitor spend.
