The Domestic Tourism Statistics collection (DoTS) measures Australian resident tourism by modelling multiple data sources to produce estimates of trips, nights and expenditure. These inputs include:
Each year, approximately 32,000 Australian residents aged 14 years and over are interviewed. The majority of these interviews (around 24,000) are conducted face-to-face, with the remaining responses collected through online surveys.
The survey runs continuously with face-to-face interviews taking place on each weekday and on weekends (excluding national public holidays). Residents classified as ‘in scope’ for interviewing include those who:
The survey is conducted within the Roy Morgan Single Source face-to-face survey and tourism online journal and uses an address-based, random probability sample to be representative of the Australian population. This means that every Australian has the opportunity to be selected, reducing potential for bias and increasing the precision of trip estimates.
The survey uses specific recall periods to collect information on recent travel experiences. This includes details on:
Overnight trips include travel at least 40 kilometres from home with one or more nights away. Trips taken in conjunction with outbound trips are excluded.
Day trips include travel of at least 4 hours duration and 50 kilometres round trip distance, with no overnight stay. Day trips taken as part of an overnight trip, or routine travel within a person’s usual environment are excluded.
Outbound trips include travel by Australian residents overseas for less than 12 months.
The survey collects detailed information about travel behaviour, including:
DoTS definitions are based on those provided by the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO).
Interviews are conducted with people who have travelled for purposes including holiday, visiting friends and relatives (VFR), business, education and employment. To be included, travellers must not have been away from home continuously for more than 364 days, or 365 days in a leap year.
Mobility data measures domestic visitor movement. It is de-identified, aggregated mass movement across geo-locations using pings from mobile phones, Global Positioning System (GPS) and mobile applications (apps).
The survey data is enriched by mobility data and overseas arrivals and departure data to provide more complete information on domestic travel activity. Modelling is used to integrate these inputs to produce official estimates of Australian resident travel.
There are three key stages in the modelling process:
DoTS provides information on travel activity and spend by domestic visitors. Spend in the survey is only collected for the respondent’s entire journey, not for individual stops.
To assess the economic impact of visitor activity on specific regions, Tourism Research Australia uses a model-based approach to allocate visitor expenditure across Australia's tourism regions. The outputs from this model-based approach are subsequently used to develop expenditure targets within the DoTS modelling process.
Domestic tourism estimates prior to 2025 have been backcast at the national, state and territory levels for trips, nights and expenditure. This aligns the historical series with the current methodology and supports meaningful comparison over time where backcast data are available.
Following the completion of the first full year of DoTS data collection, the 2019–2024 backcast estimates were revised in March 2026 to enhance robustness and consistency. These revisions brought the historical series into closer alignment with observed DoTS trends, providing a more accurate reflection of the methodological transition.
DoTS is co-funded by the Commonwealth, state and territory governments under the auspices of the Australian Standing Committee on Tourism (ASCOT).
Results from DoTS are published quarterly.