Year ending June 2021

COVID-19 has had a large impact on international travel to Australia in the past year. Our data shows the effects of this on Australia’s tourism industry.

You can:

  • read about the factors influencing international travel to Australia.
  • see the changes compared over the various timeframes impacted by bushfires and COVID-19.

Note: As the results for the year ending June 2020 were a large deviation from pre-pandemic levels, the summary results are compared to the year ending June 2019 (pre-COVID-19).

Quarterly snapshot

International visitor spend

Year ending June 2021
$1.3 billion
Down 97.1%

International visitors

Year ending June 2021
138,438
Down 98.4%

Visitor nights

Year ending June 2021
9.6 million
Down 96.5%

Key results

Key results for the year ending June 2021 include:

  • international visitor numbers fell by 98.4% to 138,438
  • international visitor spend was down 97.1% to $1.3 billion
  • visitor nights were down 96.5% to 9.6 million

Australia’s top 5 markets

Australia’s top 5 international visitor markets saw large losses:

  • Chinese visitor numbers fell 99.8%. This was a loss of 1.3 million visitors. Spend fell 99.4% or $11.8 billion.
  • New Zealand visitor numbers fell 93.9%. This was a loss of 1.2 million visitors. Spend fell 86.8% or $2.2 billion. New Zealand saw the smallest losses of all markets. This was due to a trans-Tasman bubble opening between the two countries during the June quarter 2021.
  • The United States of America visitor numbers fell 98.8%. This was a loss of 755,000 visitors. Spend fell 96.3% or $3.8 billion.
  • United Kingdom visitor numbers fell 98.9%. This was a loss of 666,000 visitors. Spend fell 96.5% or $3.3 billion.
  • Japanese visitor numbers fell 99.7%. This was a loss of 444,000 visitors. Spend fell 99.3% or $2.0 billion.

Tourism losses due to COVID-19 (March 2020 to June 2021)

Total international and domestic tourism losses since the start of the pandemic (March 2020) reached $101.7 billion.

International tourism saw losses of $51.3 billion overall for March 2020 to June 2021. This was due to international border closures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Over the same period, there were further losses of:

  • $38.3 billion from domestic overnight travel
  • $12.1 billion from domestic day travel.

International Visitor Survey results data tables

Type Title Size Date
Summary results for the year ending June 2021 as compared to June 2020 25KB 30/06/21
Summary results for the year ending June 2021 as compared to June 2019 25KB 30/06/21

Read more

Read the International Visitor Survey methodology.

Contact us

Email Tourism.Research@tra.gov.au