Whitsundays Tourism Statistics

At a glance

• The Whitsundays had 873,000 overnight visitors in 2025. Together with day-trippers, they spent about A$1.2 billion.¹
• With its white-sand beaches and clear water, this stretch of tropical Queensland coast is one of Australia's top holiday spots.
• It’s especially popular with Australian travellers, who can reach the Great Barrier Reef straight from its coast.

In 2025, 873,000 people stayed overnight in the Whitsundays, 697,000 from within Australia and 176,000 from overseas.¹ The 2025 domestic figure comes from Tourism Research Australia's new survey method, so it doesn't compare directly with earlier years.

• The region had 897,000 visitors in 2024.²
• About 880,000 people² visited in 2023, including 724,000 domestic visitors.³
• 2022 brought a strong rebound, with 851,000 domestic visitors, though international figures for the region weren't published.⁴
• Domestic visitors numbered 791,000 in 2021⁵, and again no international figure was published.
• When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, visitor numbers fell 32.4% to 575,000.⁶
• That compares with 851,000 people in 2019, before the pandemic.⁶

• In 2025, four in five Whitsundays visitors were Australian: 697,000 domestic (80%) against 176,000 international (20%).¹
• International visitors fell 6.4% on 2024¹, then edged up 3.4% to 177,000 in the year to June 2026.⁷

Visitor spending in the Whitsundays has topped A$1 billion every year since 2022.

• In 2025, visitors spent about A$1.2 billion: A$970.6 million by domestic visitors and A$233.5 million by international visitors¹. Domestic spending is now measured with a new survey method, so it can't be compared directly with 2024.
• International spending fell 7.4% on 2024¹, but in the year to June 2026 it reached a record A$273 million, up 26.9%.⁷
• Spending reached A$1.66 billion in 2024², a strong recovery from the pandemic.
• Visitors spent A$694.5 million in 2019, before the pandemic.⁶

International visitors stay about twice as long as domestic visitors.

• In 2025, international visitors stayed 7.5 nights¹ on average.
• Domestic visitors stayed 3.6 nights on average in 2025¹. Interstate visitors stay longer than Queenslanders: 5.7 nights against 3.6 in the year to September 2024.⁸

• Great Barrier Reef: The Whitsundays takes in part of the reef, which had 2.34 million tourism visitor days in the year to June 2026¹⁰, and the Whitsundays is one of its busiest areas: in 2022–23 it had 619,714 full-day reef visits, nearly 45% of the total.¹¹
• Airlie Beach: The mainland gateway to the Whitsunday Islands.
• Whitsunday Islands National Park: Takes in several of the Whitsunday Islands.

How many people visit Whitehaven Beach each year?

No official visitor count is published for Whitehaven Beach, but local tour operator Wings puts it at about 75,000 people a year.¹² Whitehaven Beach, next to Hill Inlet, is one of the world’s most photographed beaches.

How many people visit Hamilton Island each year?

By 2023, about 130,000 people a year visited Hamilton Island, almost double the 70,000 of 20 years earlier, when the Oatley family took over.¹³ The largest inhabited island in the Whitsundays, it has luxury resorts, plenty of places to eat, and walks such as the hike up Passage Peak.