9 new facts on travel to and from Australia
Overseas Arrivals and Departures – 2024-25 financial year
The ABS has released the annual analysis of overseas arrivals and departures data, with data for 2024-25 now available.
1. Australia is the holiday place to be!
Whether it’s to see our beautiful beaches or the rugged outback, 43 per cent of visitors were here for holiday travel.
2. Aussies love a vacation
Around 3 out of 5 Australians who went overseas were travelling for a holiday, making it the most popular reason to head overseas.
3. Kiwis love a sunburnt country
New Zealand is our top source country for visitors, with 17 per cent of visitors coming from across the Tasman Sea.
4. Trips from India have doubled in the last 10 years
There was a rise of 102 per cent in trips from India compared with the 2014-15 financial year. Visitors from India also stayed twice as long than in 2014-15, with the median duration of stay for these visits doubling to 61 days.
5. Visitors from Japan know how to squeeze in a vacation
The median stay of a visit from Japan was 6 days, half the overall median duration of all stays in Australia (12 days).
6. Indonesia is our favourite place to go
Indonesia was the destination for 14 per cent of Australian trips, making it the number one place for holidaying Australians.
7. Japan steps up to our third holiday hotspot
The number of trips to Japan has tripled compared with 2014-15. This made Japan the third most popular destination for Australian travel, overtaking the USA.
8. The USA drops to our fourth most popular destination
The USA was our third most popular destination in 2023-24 but is now ranked fourth. Travel to the USA is 25 per cent lower than 10 years ago, the only top 10 country to remain below 2014-15 volumes.
9. China enters the top five destinations for Australians
The top five destination countries for Australians are Indonesia, New Zealand, Japan, the USA, and China. This year, China has moved up two places to become our fifth most popular travel destination.
Media notes
- Overseas arrivals and departures (OAD) data, including permanent and long-term movements should not be used as a measure of overseas migration. This data does not reflect the official ABS definition of migration and may lead to inaccurate interpretations. For instance, OAD permanent and long-term arrivals may be increasing while actual overseas migrant arrivals are decreasing for the same period.
For accurate insights into overseas migration, please refer to the ABS’s official overseas migration statistics: - Short-term trip has a duration of stay of less than 12 months.
- Median duration of stay refers to the number of days at which half of travellers had a longer stay and half had a shorter stay.
- When reporting ABS data, you must attribute the Australian Bureau of Statistics (or the ABS) as the source.
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