Outbound travel from Australia continues to increase, but it has only reached 2014 levels – and the same is true of inbound travel.
Latest data released yesterday by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) shows that in the month of March 2023, total departures from Australia reached 1.33 million. That figure matches March 2014, when 1.3 million people departed Australia to head overseas.
A similar trend is evident in inbound travel. In March 2023, 1.38 million arrivals from abroad were recorded in Australia. That is similar to the 1.34 million arrivals recorded in March 2014.
The ABS notes that the provisional data for March has not yet had the complete quality assurance methods applied as was done in the earlier months. Provisional estimates will be revised next month – but even so, the trend is clear. Travel has much catching up to do before reaching the levels of 2019, the last year before the Covid pandemic struck.
Here’s another comparison. This looks at short-term visitor arrivals and departures. February 2023 is the latest month available from the ABS and the totals were released yesterday.
The travel recovery continues.
In February 2023:
- Total arrivals: 1,375,520 – an annual increase of 1,104,240
- Total departures: 1,068,410 – an annual increase of 892,150
For short-term visitor arrivals to Australia in February 2023:
- A total of 600,710 short-term trips were recorded, an increase of 510,250 compared with the corresponding month of the previous year.
- The number of trips for February 2023 was 35.2% lower than the pre-Covid level in February 2019.
- New Zealand was the most significant source country, accounting for 13% of all visitor arrivals.
For short-term resident returns (a way of gauging outbound travel from Australia) for the month of February 2023:
- A total of 639,580 short-term trips were recorded, an increase of 522,710 compared with the corresponding month of the previous year.
- The number of trips for February 2023 was 14.3% lower than the pre-Covid level in February 2019.
- New Zealand was the most popular destination country, accounting for 15% of all resident returns.
For more details and interactive graphs, see the ABS site here.
Written by: Peter Needham
