Australia Tourism Statistics

At a glance

• 8.27 million international visitor trips were made to Australia in 2025, up 8% on 2024¹ but still about 5% below the 2019 peak of 8.71 million.²
• 5.77 million short-term visitors arrived between January and August 2026, 2.4% more than in the same months of 2025.³
• New Zealand (1.30 million) and China (974,000) were the largest visitor markets in 2025.¹
• International visitors spent A$55.67 billion on their trips in 2025,¹ about 23% more than in 2019.²
• Chinese visitors spent the most within Australia, at about A$11.25 billion.¹
• Australians returned from a record 12.71 million short-term overseas trips in 2025/26, with Indonesia the most popular destination.⁴

International visitors made 8.27 million trips to Australia in 2025 (year ending December),¹ up 8% from about 7.63 million in 2024.

• That left trips about 5% below the 2019 peak of 8.71 million.²¹
• In the 12 months to June 2026, international visitor trips rose to about 8.4 million, up 9% on the year before.⁵

New Zealand was the largest source of international visitors in the year ending December 2025, with about 1.30 million arrivals, followed by China with about 974,000 visitors.¹

• Other leading markets included the United Kingdom (721,000), the United States (697,000), and India (429,000).¹
• Chinese visitor numbers were still roughly 27% below 2019, when 1.33 million came.²¹
• New Zealand visitor numbers have now edged past their pre-pandemic level (1.30 million in 2019).²¹

Short-term visitor arrivals to Australia peaked at 9.34 million in the 2018/19 financial year (July to June), after almost three decades of steady growth. The pandemic then all but stopped international travel: Australia closed its border to non-residents in March 2020, and arrivals fell to just 150,880 in 2020/21, about 98% below the peak.¹⁰

• Arrivals recovered after the border reopened to visitors in stages between November 2021 and February 2022, reaching 1.19 million in 2021/22 and 5.86 million in 2022/23.⁴
• By 2023/24 arrivals were back to 7.97 million, rising to 8.40 million in 2024/25.⁴
• In 2025/26, arrivals reached 9.10 million, about 3% short of the 2018/19 record.⁴

These border figures count every short-term arrival, including children, so they run higher than the Tourism Research Australia survey figures at the top of this page, which count trips by visitors aged 15 and over. On that measure, 2019 remains the record year at 8.71 million trips.²

How popular is camping in Australia?

• A record 17.3 million caravan and camping trips were taken in Australia in 2025, up 14% on 2024.¹¹
• Caravan and campervan registrations reached a record of almost 938,000 in 2025, 32% more than in 2019.¹¹

Where and why do Australians go camping?

• Caravan and camping travellers spent 57.9 million nights away in 2025, with 87% of those nights in regional Australia. Almost one in every seven domestic overnight trips was a caravan or camping trip.¹¹
• Most caravan and camping trips (77%) were holidays, while a further 13% were to visit friends and relatives.¹¹

How much do Australians spend on camping trips?

• Caravan and camping travellers spent about A$12.6 billion on their trips in 2025, well above the pre-COVID level of A$10.2 billion.¹¹ For more, see our recent camping statistics in Australia and glamping trends.
• Commercial caravan parks and camping grounds accounted for 67% of these trips, 70% of nights and 75% of spending.¹¹

How much does campervan hire cost in Australia?

A typical campervan costs about A$150 to A$200 a day to hire from Australia's major cities, based on rental-company quotes for seven-day hires that Camper Champ collected in October 2026 for pickups over the following 12 months.¹²

• Brisbane (A$148 a day on average), Sydney (A$150) and Melbourne (A$152) are the cheapest major cities to pick up a campervan. Hobart (A$197) and Darwin (A$185) are the dearest.¹²
• January is the most expensive month in most cities. A typical campervan from Sydney costs A$185 a day in January 2027, compared with A$131 in June 2027, while Hobart peaks at A$236 a day in January.¹²
• June is the cheapest month to start a hire in seven of the eight cities, from A$131 a day in Sydney to A$169 in Hobart.¹²
• Budget deals start from around A$70 a day in Sydney, Brisbane and Cairns.¹²

Monthly prices are median daily rates for budget and mid-range campervans, not motorhomes or 4WDs, and each city's average is taken across its pickup months. Brisbane's average leaves out December and January, when almost no campervans were available to book.

How many overseas trips do Australians take?

Australians returned from 12.71 million short-term overseas trips in 2025/26 (year ending June), the most on record and 13% more than the pre-pandemic peak of 11.23 million in 2018/19.⁴

• Outbound travel almost stopped during the pandemic: Australians returned from only 223,820 short-term trips in 2020/21,¹⁰ when they needed an exemption to leave the country.¹³
• Overseas trips passed their pre-pandemic level in 2024/25, at 12.26 million.⁴
• Australians now take about 3.6 million more short-term trips abroad each year than international visitors make to Australia (12.71 million compared with 9.10 million in 2025/26).⁴

Where do Australians travel overseas?

• Indonesia was the most popular destination in 2025/26, with 1.78 million trips, followed by New Zealand (1.49 million), Japan (993,000), China (744,000) and the United States (680,000).⁴
• Trips to Japan have more than doubled since 2018/19 (484,000), while trips to the United States were 37% below their pre-pandemic level of 1.08 million.⁴