Visitor Arrivals - Calendar year - 2020

Statistics on international travel, including tourism trips, arriving in and departing from Australia. Focusing on short-term trips (less than 1 year)

Released
17/08/2021

Visitor Arrivals - Calendar year - 2020

Compares annual international travel arrivals over time by source country, by state and territory, by age and sex, by main reason for journey and by median duration of trip. All analysis in this section is done on short-term trips (less than 1 year).

Effects of COVID-19 outbreak

The World Health Organisation (WHO) commenced daily situation reports of the COVID-19 outbreak on 21 January 2020 and identified it as an international health emergency on 30 January. This was less than a month after suspected cases were reported in Wuhan, China. Initially the Australian Government placed travel restrictions on those travelling to Australia from mainland China commencing 1 February 2020. Restrictions on other countries soon followed. From 20 March 2020, all overseas travel was banned, with few exceptions. The pandemic has continued to disrupt international travel. For more information, see the Prime Minister's media release on border restrictions or the Smartraveller page from the Australian government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade website.

Key findings

Note: 97% of visitor arrivals in 2020 occurred prior to travel restrictions implemented by the Australian Government on 20 March 2020.

Visitors arriving in Australia in 2020.

  • There were 1.8 million visitor arrivals, down 80.7% on the previous year and the lowest since 1987
  • New Zealand was the largest source country, accounting for 242,500 visitors nationally
  • There were more visits by women than men. Ten years earlier, the opposite was true
  • The main reason for travel was 'holiday' (43.2%)
  • Nationally, the median duration of stay in Australia was 14 days.

Annual visitor arrivals

Source countries

State or territory of stay

Age and sex

Main reason for journey

Duration of stay

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