AUSTRALIA saw a significant boost in outbound travel during January, the latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has revealed. Almost 1.1 million Aussies returned from overseas travel, up a whopping 50% on Dec 2022. This number was still 21% lower than the pre-COVID level in Jan 2019, however.
New Zealand retained its spot as the number one preferred destination choice for Aussies, accounting for 17% of all overseas trips in Jan. India experienced a notable increase in Aussie visitor numbers, bumping the USA off the third spot, and was also the only country in the top 10 destinations for Jan to surpass levels from 10 years ago (up 52% from 216,720 in 2012).
Australians stayed overseas for 16 days on average in January – down from 17 days in 2021 – with ‘holiday’ listed as the main reason for travel for nearly half of all trips for the month.
Australia’s inbound tourism has been slower to pick up the pace, falling by 36% in January from December 2022, remaining significantly under COVID-19 levels at just 44% of January 2019 numbers. Most of Australia’s international arrivals for January came from New Zealand, which racked up 65,480 trips, followed by the UK (55,070) and the USA (49,480).
South Korea and China were the only destinations within the top 10 visitor countries that saw an uptick in the number of trips taken for the month compared to the previous month.
Although Queensland was the third most popular destination choice with 73,690 overseas arrivals, behind NSW (159,130) and Vic (109,950), the Sunshine State fell 48% short of its pre-COVID visitor levels – the lowest of all states and territories.
Check out the statistics HERE.
