National Tourism Satellite Account

Summary of the 2022-23 financial year

The National Tourism Satellite Account (NTSA) is an Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) annual data product. It examines Australia’s tourism performance through an economic lens. NTSA data is useful for understanding:

• the value of goods and services consumed by visitors
• the tourism contribution to Gross Domestic Product (GDP), international trade and employment.

This summary of the NTSA by Tourism Research Australia (TRA) looks at the 2022-23 financial year. This is in comparison to performance in earlier financial years.

Beyond COVID-19

The tourism industry experienced recovery throughout 2022-23, after the severe impact of the COVID‑19 pandemic. By 2023, travel restrictions and patronage limits had been removed both in Australia and globally, supporting an increase in confidence to travel domestically and internationally. In 2022-23 international visitor arrivals to Australia increased strongly from a very low base and domestic travel continued to rebound.

TRA expects to see further growth in international travel over future years, according to recent tourism forecasts for Australia. This should see international tourism spend exceed the pre-pandemic value in 2024. Domestic tourism spend is also expected to continue to rise, having already climbed beyond its pre-pandemic level.

Key results

Total tourism consumption was $164.5 billion in 2022-23. This was up 72% or $68.6 billion on 2021‑22, and up 8% or $12.1 billion on 2018-19 (the last full financial year pre-pandemic). This resulted in:

• a 77% increase in tourism GDP, which rose from $35.6 billion in 2021-22 to $63 billion in 2022-23. Therefore, on a current price basis, tourism GDP was 4.4% or $2.7 billion higher than in 2018-19 (pre-pandemic).
• tourism GDP as a share of the national economy increasing from 1.5% in 2021-22, to 2.5% in 2022-23.
• tourism filled jobs increasing by 42% from 442,600 in 2021-22 to 626,400 in 2022-23. This was 11% or 74,500 fewer jobs than in 2018-19.
• tourism’s share of total filled jobs increasing from 3.1% in 2021-22, to 4.1% in 2022-23 (1 in 24 jobs). In 2018-19, tourism accounted for 5.1%, or 1 in 20 jobs in the Australian workforce.
• tourism exports from international visitors spending money on Australian goods and services, rising by $20.1 billion to $26.1 billion in 2022-23. However, this remained 34% down on the $39.3 billion of tourism exports in 2018-19.
• tourism imports from the money Australian residents spend when travelling overseas, growing by $30 billion to $41.1 billion in 2022-23. This compares with $58.1 billion in tourism imports in 2018-19.

Tourism consumption results

Tourism consumption was $164.5 billion in 2022-23. This was 72% (or $68.6 billion) up on the previous year. It was also 8% ($12.1 billion) higher than the pre-pandemic level in 2018-19.

The recovery in total tourism consumption, in current prices, to above the pre-pandemic level was driven by consumption by domestic households. Tourism consumption by the domestic household sector was 27% higher in 2022-23 than it was pre-pandemic (in 2018-19). Tourism consumption by the domestic business/government sector was 7% higher in 2022-23 than pre-pandemic. In comparison, tourism consumption by international visitors was 34% lower in 2022-23 than it was prior to the pandemic.

By category of goods and services consumed, most categories recovered to above their pre-pandemic levels in 2022-23 (Figure 1). The exception was the education services category which remained at just below half its pre-pandemic level. The consumption of education services is dominated by international visitors.  Compared to 2018-19, tourism consumption by category in 2022-23 was:

• 19% (or $8 billion) higher for accommodation and food services
• 18% (or $3.4 billion) higher for shopping, gifts and souvenirs
• 18% (or $1.6 billion) higher for recreational, cultural and gambling
• 13% (or $2.2 billion) higher for food and drinks
• 4% (or $1.6 billion) higher for transport
• 4% (or $0.3 billion) higher for travel agency and tour operator services
• 51% (or $4.3 billion) lower for education services.

helpHover on lines and columns to show data

Source: ABS, Australian National Accounts: Tourism Satellite Account, 2022-23, December 2023

The results above from the ABS are consistent with TRA data from the National Visitor Survey and International Visitor Survey. TRA survey results reflect a pick-up in visitor spend from the start of 2022. In comparison with 2018-19, visitor spend in Australia in 2022-23 comprised:

• an $8.9 billion fall in international spend in Australia (down 29%)
• a $30.8 billion increase in domestic overnight spend (up 40%)
• an $8.4 billion increase in daytrip spend (up 34%).

GDP from tourism

GDP from tourism was $63 billion in 2022–23. This was an increase of 77% ($27.3 billion) on 2021‑22. In current prices, GDP from tourism was 4.4% higher in 2022-23 than in 2018-19 (pre-pandemic). Tourism’s share of all economic activity in Australia dropped from 3.1% in 2018–19 to 1.4% in 2020-21. It then increased slightly to 1.5% in 2021-22 and then increased a further percentage point to 2.5% in 2022-23 (Figure 2). 

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Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Australian National Accounts: Tourism Satellite Account, 2022-23, December 2023

Tourism exports and imports

Australia’s international border reopened in early 2022, and throughout 2022-23 there was strong growth in international travel in and out of Australia, off extremely low levels. As a result, tourism exports and imports increased strongly in the year, but remained well below their pre-pandemic levels in 2018-19 (Figure 3).

Exports

Tourism exports are the value of spending on Australian goods and services by international visitors.

The value of tourism exports was $26.1 billion in 2022-23. This was up 341% compared with 2020-21 ($5.9 billion). However, this was still 34% lower than the $39.3 billion of exports in 2018-19. 

Imports

Tourism imports are the value of spending by Australian residents during overseas travel.

The value of tourism imports was $41.1 billion in 2022-23. This was 271% higher than the $11.1 billion of imports for 2020-21, but still 29% lower than the $58.1 billion of tourism imports for 2018-19. 

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Source: ABS, Australian National Accounts: Tourism Satellite Account, 2022-23, December 2023

Tourism filled jobs

There were 626,400 filled jobs in tourism in 2022-23. This was 42% higher than the 442,600 in 2021‑22 (Figure 4). However, filled jobs were still 11% or 74,500 lower than in the pre-pandemic year of 2018-19. In contrast to the previous 2 years, there were slightly more full-time tourism jobs (317,600) than part-time tourism jobs (308,800) in 2022-23.

helpHover on lines and columns to show data

Source: ABS, Australian National Accounts: Tourism Satellite Account, 2022-23,  December 2023

The growth in tourism filled jobs (42%) was stronger than growth in all Australian jobs (5%) in the year from 2021-22 to 2022-23. As a result, tourism’s share of total filled jobs increased from 3.1% in 2021-22 to 4.1% in 2022-23. In 2018-19, before the COVID-19 pandemic, there were 700,900 filled tourism jobs, representing 5.1% of total filled jobs in Australia.

Changes in this issue

The current NTSA incorporates revisions to tourism aggregates from 2019-20 to 2021-22. These reflect the replacement of modelled data with measured data for domestic and international tourism expenditure, net taxes, imports and margins data.

Table 1 summarises the revisions from 2019-20 to 2021-22 to key metrics reported in the NTSA. For more information on these revisions, see Changes in this issue at NTSA data.   

* New denotes estimates in 2022-23 National Tourism Satellite Account (current release)
** Previous denotes estimates in 2021-22 National Tourism Satellite Account (last year's edition)