Visitation to Australia climbed to eight million trips as a total for the year, 300,000 trips up compared to the year to June 2025 and a seven per cent increase on figures from a year ago.
The latest numbers put Australia’s recovery to pre-COVID levels of visitation at 92 per cent, up from 90 per cent in June.
The June percentage showed no relative increase in recovery when comparing to the year to March, indicating visitation recovery stagnated earlier in the year.
While a two per cent rise in overall visitation is good news, business travel, which includes travel for business events, was down by four per cent for the year, compared to the year ending in September 2024, while spend in Australia by business travellers was down 13 per cent.
For the September 2025 quarter, trips were up 13 per cent on the same quarter in 2024.
In particular travellers from China and the United Kingdom were up during the quarter, with Tourism Research Australia crediting the British and Irish Lions Tour with playing a role in the 32 per cent spike in UK visitors.
The rise in nights spent in Australia by UK travellers and the increase in spending was even more stark, with nights spent up 59 per cent on the same quarter in 2024 and spend up 74 per cent.
For Chinese visitors, the notable reasons for travel were education and holiday travel. Trips by Chinese travellers were up 16 per cent, nights spent were up 14 per cent and spend was up by 34 per cent or $909 million.
Looking at spend and nights spent in Australia over the year to September, both are up significantly – with spend up 15 per cent compared to a year ago and up 18 per cent compared to pre-pandemic while nights spent in Australia were up eight per cent compared to the year prior and up 12 per cent compared to 2019.
The latest figures and the slow pace of Australia’s international visitor recovery suggests predictions made in late 2023 that Australia could hit a new visitor record this year seem unlikely to come to fruition. The same forecast from Tourism Research Australia predicted Australia’s recovery would be at 98 per cent of pre-COVID levels in 2024 – something that nearly a year later still remains an elusive feat.
