Year ending September 2021

COVID-19 has had a devastating impact on international travel to Australia over the past 2 years. The 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 time frames impacted by COVID-19.

The results for the year ending September 2020 were a large deviation from pre-pandemic levels. The summary results are compared to the year ending September 2019 (pre-COVID-19 period).

Quarterly snapshot

International visitor spend

Year ending September 2021
$1.3 billion
Down 97.1%

International visitors

Year ending September 2021
155,469
Down 98.2%

Visitor nights

Year ending September 2021
10.4 million
Down 96.2%

Key results

Key results for the year ending September 2021 include:

  • international visitor numbers fell by 98.2% to 155,469
  • international visitor spend was down 97.1% to $1.3 billion
  • visitor nights were down 96.2% to 10.4 million.

Australia’s top 5 markets

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

  • Chinese visitor numbers fell 99.7%. This was a loss of 1.3 million visitors. Spend fell 99.4% or $12.2 billion.
  • New Zealand visitor numbers fell 93.0%. This was a loss of 1.2 million visitors. Spend fell 88.6% or $2.3 billion. New Zealand saw the smallest losses of all markets, recording 89,000 visitors. This was more than half (57%) of all visitors to Australia for the year ending September 2021. This was due to a trans-Tasman bubble opening between the 2 countries during the June quarter 2021.
  • United States of America visitor numbers fell 98.9%. This was a loss of 763,000 visitors. Spend fell 96.4% or $3.9 billion.
  • United Kingdom visitor numbers fell 98.9%. This was a loss of 662,000 visitors. Spend fell 96.3% or $3.2 billion.
  • Japanese visitor numbers fell 99.7%. This was a loss of 454,000 visitors. Spend fell 99.3% or $2.1 billion.

Tourism losses due to COVID-19

Total international and domestic tourism losses since the start of the pandemic in March 2020 reached $128.3 billion.

International tourism saw losses of $62.5 billion for March 2020 to September 2021. This was due to international border closures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Over the same period, there were further losses of:

  • $49.8 billion from domestic overnight travel
  • $16.0 billion from domestic day travel.

International Visitor Survey results data tables

Type Title Size Date
Read the summary results for the year ending September 2021 as compared to September 2020 32KB 22/12/21
Read the summary results for the year ending September 2021 as compared to September 2019 32KB 22/12/21

Read more

Read the International Visitor Survey methodology.

Contact us

Email Tourism.Research@tra.gov.au