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Year ending December 2021
COVID-19 had a large impact on international travel to Australia over the past two years. Our 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 various timeframes impacted by COVID-19.
Note: The summary results are compared to the year ending December 2019 (pre-COVD period). This is because the results for the year ending December 2020 were a large deviation from pre-pandemic levels.
Quarterly snapshot
International visitor spend
Year ending March 2022 | $4.9 billion | Down 88.3%
International visitor numbers
Year ending March 2022 | 483,057 | Down 94.0%
Nights spent in Australia
Year ending March 2022 | 38.6 million | Down 85.0%
Notes on the data
- We compared the summary results to the year ending March 2020 (pre-COVID period). This is because the results for the year ending March 2021 were a large deviation from pre-pandemic levels.
- We have updated the July 2021 to December 2021 data. We did this to reflect changes in Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Overseas Arrivals and Departures data. You can find more information about this update on the ABS website.
Key results
Key results for the year ending March 2022 include:
- International visitor numbers fell by 94.0% to 483,057.
- International visitor spend was down 88.3% to $4.9 billion.
- Visitor nights were down 85.0% to 38.6 million.
Australia’s top 5 markets
Australia’s top 5 international visitor markets saw significant losses:
- Chinese visitor numbers fell 98.4%. This was a loss of 1.1 million visitors. Spend fell 95.0% or $9.7 billion.
- New Zealand visitor numbers fell 91.3%. This was a loss of 1.1 million visitors. Spend fell 85.4% or $2.1 billion. New Zealand saw the smallest losses of all markets, recording 108,000 visitors. This was 22% of all visitors to Australia for the year ending March 2022. This was due to a trans-Tasman bubble opening between the two countries during the June quarter 2021. The bubble operated on and off to the end of the year.
- The United States of America visitor numbers fell 94.9%. This was a loss of 678,000 visitors. Spend fell 90.2% or $3.3 billion.
- United Kingdom visitor numbers fell 89.8%. This was a loss of 572,000 visitors. Spend fell 81.9% or $2.6 billion.
- Japanese visitor numbers fell 98.3%. This was a loss of 418,000 visitors. Spend fell 96.4% or $1.9 billion.
Tourism losses during the pandemic
Total international and domestic tourism losses since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic (March 2020) reached $156.8 billion.
International tourism saw losses of $81.9 billion overall for March 2020 to March 2022. This was due to international border closures caused by the pandemic. Australia’s border reopened to all international visitors on 21 February 2022.
Over the same period, there were further losses of:
- $56.2 billion from domestic overnight travel
- $18.7 billion from domestic day travel.
Data tables
Read more
- Read the International Visitor Survey Methodology
- Find older data tables and other publications on our Data and research page