International travel to Australia

IBISWorld expects international arrivals into Australia to rise by 6.3% in 2024-25, to 8.47 million. While international travel to Australia continues to rise after the impacts of the pandemic, 2024-25 has seen a significant drop-off in growth rates compared to the post-pandemic international travel boom of 2022-23 and 2023-24. However, an expected expansion of over 500,000 international visitors in 2024-25 has been driven by the gradual approach to pre-pandemic benchmarks. A depreciation in the Australian dollar in 2024-25 compared to many major currencies, including the US Dollar, Pound Sterling, Euro and Chinese Yuan, has made travel to Australia more attractive through greater purchasing power for international visitors. In saying this, international travel remains an estimated 9.3% below the all-time high of 9.34 million visitors in 2018-19.

As the pandemic hit, international travel to Australia was heavily restricted. Initially, the Federal Government placed restrictions on visitors who departed or travelled through mainland China in February 2020, with these restrictions also being later placed on South Korea, Iran and Italy. However, as the global outbreak escalated, on 20 March 2020, all foreign nationals were banned from travelling to Australia, leaving only Australian citizens, residents and immediate family members to enter the country. These travel restrictions during the June 2020 quarter caused international arrivals to Australia to plummet in 2019-20, despite having trended upwards in the first six months of the year. The pandemic extended into 2020-21 and the Federal Government retained strong travel restrictions to limit the incursion of the virus from overseas. These measures ensured that only 150,880 international travellers arrived in 2020-21. This figure improved to 1.19 million in 2021-22 as international borders opened to all vaccinated travellers in February 2022. From 6 July 2022, international visitors no longer need to provide proof of vaccination or complete passenger declaration forms. While international travel has been operating under mostly normal conditions since this period, the recovery has been long-winded. International arrivals spiked throughout 2022-23 and 2023-24, reaching 7.97 million by the end of this two-year period. However, international traveller inflows remained well below pre-pandemic benchmarks, as global economic challenges, like high inflation, resulted in escalating travel expenses and tighter budgets for potential foreign travellers. International traveller growth has continued into 2024-25 but at a much slower rate than in 2023-24, providing evidence that growth rates are set to plateau over the coming years. Overall, IBISWorld expects the number of international arrivals to expand by a compound annual rate of 4.7% over the five years through 2024-25.