New South Wales Tourism Statistics | How many visit? (2024)

Published 16 Mar 2020 · Updated 26 June 2025

How many tourists visit New South Wales each year?

Approximately 41.3 million visitors traveled to New South Wales in 2024 (year ending December).

Of these, about 37.49 million were domestic overnight visitors, representing a 2% increase from 36.75 million in 2023.
International visitors accounted for roughly 3.81 million trips to NSW, which was still about 13% below the peak year of 2019 (when NSW received 4.38 million international visitors).

Tourists spent a total of A$43.53 billion in New South Wales during the year ending December 2024.

Domestic visitors were the primary contributors, spending approximately A$31.50 billion in the state (about 2.7% more than the A$30.66 billion spent in 2023).
International visitors spent around A$12.03 billion in NSW in 2024.
Total tourist spending in NSW was about 24% higher than the pre-pandemic total of 2019 (A$35.05 billion).

Total Visitor Spending in New South Wales
Year	International	Domestic
2019	A$11.38 B	A$23.67 B
2023	A$10.87 B	A$30.66 B
2024	A$12.03 B	A$31.50 B

Over 38.9 million tourists and other visitors travelled to New South Wales in 2023 (year ending June 2023).

This total included over 2.7 million international visitors and over 36.1 million domestic overnight visitors
Visitors were up over 53% when compared with the over 25 million who visited in 2022
Visitor numbers are down 6.4% when compared to the over 41.6 million who visited in pre-pandemic 2019

Tourists spent over $38.8 billion during trips to New South Wales in 2023 (year ending June).

This total included over $8.6 billion from international visitors and over $30.2 billion from domestic overnight trips
Spending was up 98.8% when compared to the over $19.5 billion spent during 2022
Spending has increased by 14.6% when compared with the over $33.9 billion spent during pre-pandemic 2019

For the first quarter of 2021 (January-March), NSW received over 8.2 million domestic overnight visitors.

Visitors were up 6.1% when compared with the over 7.7 million visitors of the first quarter of 2020.

Overnight visitors spent over $5.4 billion during visits to NSW for the first quarter of 2021 (January-March).

Spending was up 8.9% when compared with the over $5 billion spent during the first quarter of 2020.

Over 33 million travellers visited NSW in the year ending June 2020¹.

This total was made up of 3 million international visitors and over 30 million domestic visitors
Total visitors saw a 22% decrease when compared to the 42.7 million tourists of the previous year

International visitors spent an estimated total of $7.9 billion during trips to NSW in the year ending June 2020

International spending in NSW was down 29.4% when compared to the 11.2 billion of 2018/19

Domestic visitors spent an estimated total of $18 billion during trips to NSW in the year ending June 2020

Domestic spending was down 19.9% when compared to the $22.6 billion of the previous year

Combined, visitors to NSW spent a total of $25.9 billion in the year ending June 2020

Total spending was down 23.3% when compared with the $33.8 billion of the previous year

Over 42.7 million tourists and other visitors arrived in New South Wales for the year ending September 2019¹.
This total includes 4.4 million international visitors and 38.3 million domestic overnight visitors.

A total of 16.1 million tourists and other visitors arrived in Sydney between July 2018 to June 2019.
Check more Sydney tourism statistics

Over 4 million people visit the Blue Mountains annually.
4.33 million people visited the Blue Mountains in 2024, an 8.1% decline from 2019’s peak numbers (4.71 million) but a recovery from the pandemic lows of 2020-2022.

Visitors to the Blue Mountains spent approximately $1.194 billion in 2024, a 35.8% increase from 2019 ($879 million).

Byron Shire (including Byron Bay and surrounds) welcomes 1.5 to 2 million visitors annually.