Australia’s international travel rebound has reached new heights with the latest figures revealing overseas visitor spend in Australia reached an estimated $6.5 billion between April-June 2024 with visitor nights also exceeding 2019 levels for the first time.
Tourism Research Australia’s (TRA) International Visitor Survey data shows international visitors spent $6.5 billion in Australia, up 15 per cent on the same period.
In addition, in the June quarter for 2024 international travellers spent a total of 60.5 million nights (up 12%) in Australia.
Meanwhile, international visitation to Australia is still below pre-pandemic numbers with 1.6 million trips (88% of June 2019 levels).
Despite this, international travellers to Australia are now spending more and staying longer than before the pandemic to achieve record overseas visitor spend and overnights.
Tracking up in 2024
Overall, the TRA data demonstrated that international tourism to Australia continues to recover with a total of 7.4 million trips recorded in FY24, driven by leisure travel (42%) and visiting friends and relatives (34%).
International holidaymakers visited Australia on 3.1 million trips, representing 77 per cent of June 2019 levels while VFR contributed 2.5 million trips (98% of June 2019).
Business travel (78% of June 2019 levels) and travel for education purposes (80% of June 2019 levels) also contributed to the international travel rebound.
Australia’s top five international source markets for FY24 were New Zealand, China, USA, UK and India.
The total overseas visitor spend for FY24, including airfares and pre- and post-travel, was $48.7 billion, up seven per cent on 2019.
In the 12 months to June 2024, Australia received eight million international visitors – up 2.1 million (36%) on the previous year but still 1.4 million visitors down (15%) on 2019 levels.
TRA data also showed NSW led the national tourism recovery with a record-breaking $52.9 billion in domestic and overseas visitor spend in FY24.
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