Agritourism is a growth opportunity for Australia’s visitor economy
This Tourism Research Australia (TRA) report, prepared in conjunction with Tourism Australia (TA), uses the latest TRA and TA data to measure and evaluate agritourism, track growth and measure impact.
In 2024, engagement with agritourism in Australia grew in trips, nights, and spend, demonstrating the sector’s strong contribution to visitor economy growth. The data shows visitors who engage in an agritourism activity while on their trip have higher than average spend per trip and spend per night than overall travellers within Australia.
International interest
The United Kingdom, China and the United States were the top 3 markets for agritourism visitation and spend in Australia in 2024
Eighty-four percent (84%) of global travellers (excl. Australians) are interested in ‘agritourism experiences’ on a future international holiday according to Tourism Australia’s Future of Demand research.
Australia is well placed to meet this interest in agritourism as we have a diverse and growing agritourism sector to accommodate high spend travellers and boost regional economies.
These top 3 markets account for 1 in 3 international trips that include agritourism and $1 in $3 dollars spent in Australia by international visitors on trips involving agritourism, making them key target markets for the growth of agritourism. In 2024, these 3 markets contributed $1.8b to Australia through trips that included agritourism.
Of the top 10 visitor markets for trips including agritourism, Japan and Germany have a much higher than average trip length at 61 and 56 nights, respectively. These markets also have higher spend per trip, however lower than average spend per night.
Top 5 markets of origin for agritourism | Visitors (000) | Expenditure ($M) |
United Kingdom | 168,033 | $739 |
China | 143,444 | $506 |
United States of America | 138,078 | $512 |
New Zealand | 122,552 | $290 |
Korea | 116,116 | $491 |
State visitation
Victoria and New South Wales each had more than 5 million trips involving agritourism in 2024, accounting for 59% of trips involving agritourism in 2024.
Queensland, Western Australia, and South Australia account for many trips involving agritourism, with each of these states home to well-known wine regions, Indigenous food businesses and farm experiences.
South Australia and Western Australia had a much higher proportion of agritourism trips compared to their overall share of trips in 2024. South Australia accounts for 12% of agritourism trips, compared to its 6.5% share of overall trips. Western Australia’s share of trips including agritourism was 14%, higher than its proportion of overall trips, at 9.5%.
State | Proportion of trips by state and territory* |
Victoria | 30% |
New South Wales | 29% |
Queensland | 15% |
Western Australia | 14% |
South Australia | 12% |
Tasmania | 3% |
Northern Territory | 0.3% |
Australian Capital Territory | 0.2% |
‘*Due to low base sizes in some traveller types, some data was ‘not publishable’ leading to an underestimation in numbers, particularly for Tasmania, Northern Territory, and Australian Capital Territory.
Regional Australia
3 in 4 trips that include agritourism activities visited regional Australia in 2024, higher than overall trip proportions
Regional Australia is a key beneficiary of trips involving agritourism activities as we see many trips going to regional Australia. Almost 3 in 4 trips including agritourism visited regional Australia compared to 3 in 5 overall trips.
Agritourism is a great economic opportunity for regional Australia. By attracting international travellers and domestic visitors, agritourism promotes all that Australia has to show, and offers experiences not easily replicated elsewhere.
Note: Sum of trips will be more than 100% as visitors may have gone to both regional Australia and capital cities on their trip.
Travellers that engaged in agritourism also engage in a higher number of trip activities compared with the average.
Those who engaged in agritourism were more likely to eat out, sightsee, spend time in nature, and go shopping than the average traveller.
This aligns with the higher-than-average trip spend of those engaging in an agritourism activity while on their trip, as these travellers are typically doing more while on their trip.
It also points to the potential pairing of agritourism activities with other experiences.
Conclusions and further resources
Agritourism in Australia presents a growing opportunity in a sector with global demand
Agritourism in Australia is a large and valuable sector of the visitor economy, with travellers who engage with agritourism accounting for $20.3 billion in spend in 2024.
Growth in key metrics (trips, nights, spend) in 2024 indicates the sector is well placed for continued success in future years.
3 in 4 trips that include an agritourism activity travelled to regional Australia, compared to 59% of overall leisure and business trips in 2024. This indicates agritourism may be an asset to drive trips, nights, and spend in regional Australia.
Those who engage in agritourism activities on their trips tend to do more activities than general travellers for leisure and business. Therefore, those that do agritourism activities are more likely to engage with more businesses and operators than the average traveller, making them a valuable segment to the visitor economy.
Travellers who engage with agritourism have a strong propensity to benefit the visitor economy, with:
- A higher than average spend per trip
- Longer than average trip length
- Higher visitation to regional Australia.
Agritourism in Australia is uniquely positioned to show off our natural landscape, Australian culture, and contributes positively to the visitor economy.
Agritourism guidelines and further resources
‘Agritourism activities’ refers to travellers having engaged with at least one of the following activities asked in the NVS and IVS, in 2024:
Q. And what (leisure activities) did you do during this trip?
- Visit farms
- Have an Aboriginal food experience
- Visit wineries
- Visit farm gates
- Visit food markets
- Visit breweries
- Visit distilleries
Data in this report includes only leisure and business travellers for the ‘main reason for trip’ to avoid data skews caused by education and employment.
This approach has been agreed in consultation with Tourism Australia and each of the states and territories tourism offices. To measure and evaluate the sector, these activities are included to ensure a consistent approach to tracking the success of the sector.