Domestic overnight tourist trip expenditure Australia 2023, by state or territory

The combined visitor spending in New South Wales, Victoria, and Queensland amounted to well over half of Australia’s total domestic overnight tourist spending in the year ended December 2023. In New South Wales alone, domestic overnight visitors spent over 30 billion Australian dollars. During the same time period, around 36.8 million domestic tourists stayed overnight in New South Wales. 

International visitors to Australia

International visitors to Australia spent around 27 billion Australian dollars more in the financial year 2023 compared to the previous year, showing signs of a significant recovery in expenditure. Additionally, the number of international arrivals hit over 5.4 million. While this is still not at the pre-pandemic level, this figure shows that international visitors are slowly but surely returning to Australia following the lifting of travel bans. Both of these data points hint toward solid industry recovery as the pandemic wanes. 

Travel intention

As was the case globally, the COVID-19 pandemic substantially affected Australian tourism due to border closures and flight groundings associated with the spread of the coronavirus. This was reflected in consumer travel intention; whilst overall intention to travel decreased by 30 percent (compared to usual annual travel plans), domestic travel within an individual’s state or within the rest of Australia increased compared to the preceding year. In a survey conducted in November 2022, travel abroad intentions jumped, with around 46 percent of Australians planning to take more holidays in 2023 than in the previous year.