National Visitor Survey results September 2021

Year ending September 2021

The National Visitor Survey (NVS) results provide statistics on how Australian residents travel within Australia. You can find national, state and territory results for the:

• number of trips taken
• nights spent on a trip
• amount spent on a trip.

You can also:

• read about the factors influencing travel within Australia
• see the changes compared over the time frames impacted by COVID-19.

The summary results for the year ending September and September quarter 2021 are compared to the year ending September and September quarter 2019 pre-COVID periods. This is because results for the year ending September and September quarter 2020 were a large deviation from pre-pandemic levels.

Key results

Domestic trips and spend

For the year ending September 2021:

• Domestic overnight trips fell 29% to 82.7 million.
• Spend fell 23% or $18.2 billion to $60.9 billion.

For the September quarter 2021:

• Improvements seen in March and June 2021 quarters reversed due to increased border closures and restrictions to contain COVID-19 Delta outbreaks.
• Overnight trips were down 58% on September quarter 2019 to just 11.8 million. Spend was down 55% or $11.5 billion to $9.3 billion.
• Travel restrictions had a greater impact on interstate movement.
  • Interstate trips were down 86% to 1.4 million. Spend was down 77% to $2.9 billion.
  • Intrastate trips were down 43% to 10.4 million. Spend was down 23% to $6.4 billion.
• Regional areas continued to fare slightly better than capital cities during the quarter.
  • Overnight trips to regional Australia were down 50% to 8.7 million. Spend was down 39% to $6.6 billion.
  • Capital city trips were down 72% to 3.5 million. Spend was down 73% to $2.7 billion.
• High vaccination rates, a decrease in COVID-19 cases and an easing of lockdown restrictions through the December quarter offer promise for improvements next quarter.

Total tourism

Domestic and international tourism losses have totalled $128.3 billion since the start of the pandemic. These losses comprise:

• $49.8 billion for domestic overnight travel
• $16.0 billion for domestic day trips
• $62.5 billion for international travel.

Download the report

Explore overnight trips data

Interact with our data for domestic overnight trips for year ending September 2021. You can view the data by:

• state or territory
• capital city or region
• interstate and intrastate trips
• accommodation type
• reason for travel.

Data tables

Read more

• Read the National Visitor Survey Methodology
  
• We produce a monthly snapshot of the National Visitor Survey