COVID Travel Bans A King Hit For Australian Tourism

By Gavin Clancy, Senior Consultant

It’s no wonder the Federal Government is keen to restart travel between Australia and New Zealand. In 2019, Australia recorded more than 1.4 million visitor arrivals from its antipodean neighbour – or around 15 per cent of the total inbound trips.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), Australia received almost 9.5 million visitors in 2019. 

New Zealand, however, was not the leading source of international visitors last year. That honour belonged to China, which sent 1.439 million visitors (vs NZ 1.434 million) to Australia.

The US finished third in the arrival stakes, with 818,000 visitors, while the United Kingdom sent 715,800 visitors.

With international borders closed or heavily restricted due to COVID-19, those numbers will plummet this year, with dire consequences for Australia’s tourism sector.

According to the ABS, Australia recorded just 331,900 visitor arrivals in March – down 60 per cent on the 836,300 visitors who arrived in March 2019.

While borders remain closed, Australia is on track to record its lowest level of international visitors since 1989, when around two million inbound visits were recorded.

In 2019, China represented the biggest source of visitors for New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory.

Singapore provided the most visitors for Western Australia, and the United States for the Northern Territory.

But for Queensland, New Zealand was the greatest source of visitors.

China’s absence from the Australian tourism market will be especially hard-felt. From 2009 to 2019, the annual number of Chinese visitors to Australia increased almost 300 per cent.

Tourism Australia estimated that Chinese visitors spent a total $12.4 billion in 2019, way ahead of the US, on $3.9 billion, the UK, $3.4 billion and NZ, $2.6 billion.

Those figures underline the contribution of the tourism market to Australia’s national economy – in both metropolitan and regional areas. For regions highly dependent on tourism – coastal Queensland, for example – they are ominous.