Australian National Accounts: Tourism Satellite Account

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Estimates of tourism’s direct contribution to the economy including GDP, value added, employment and consumption by product and industry

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Reference period
2022-23 financial year

Key statistics

  • Tourism gross domestic product (GDP) rose 60.1% to $57.1b in chain volume terms in 2022-23 but remains below the 2018-19 peak of $63.4b.
  • Tourism's contribution to economy GDP rose to 2.5% in 2022-23 but remains below the 2018-19 level of 3.1%.
  • Domestic tourism consumption rose by $34.9b to $124.9b in 2022-23 while international tourism rose by $17.7b to $23.6b in chain volume terms.
  • Tourism filled jobs rose to 626,400 in 2022-23 but remains below the 2018-19 peak of 700,900 filled jobs.
Key tourism indicators, comparison of 2022-23 with 2021-22 (a)
  2021-222022-23Change
  $m$m%
Gross Domestic Product (GDP)Current prices35,64462,95076.6
Chain volume measures35,64457,07960.1
Gross Value Added (GVA)Current prices32,79057,23074.5
Chain volume measures32,79051,70057.7
Domestic consumption in purchasers' pricesCurrent prices90,036138,42353.7
Chain volume measures90,036124,93038.8
International consumption in purchasers' pricesCurrent prices5,92126,105340.9
Chain volume measures5,92123,649299.4
Filled jobs '000 442.6626.441.5

(a) As the reference period for chain volume measures is 2021-22, chain volume measures and current prices are identical in 2021-22.

Key tourism indicators, comparison of 2022-23 with 2018-19 (pre COVID-19)
  2018-192022-23change
  $m$m%
Gross Domestic Product (GDP)Current prices            60,271           62,9504.4
Chain volume measures         63,353            57,079-9.9
Gross Value Added (GVA)Current prices             55,186            57,2303.7
Chain volume measures             57,951            51,700-10.8
Domestic consumption in purchasers' pricesCurrent prices         113,021          138,42322.5
Chain volume measures          122,883           124,9301.7
International consumption in purchasers' pricesCurrent prices           39,326             26,105-33.6
Chain volume measures        42,527             23,649-44.4
Filled jobs '000         700.9       626.4-10.6

Direct tourism

All references to "tourism" are referring to "direct tourism" unless otherwise specified. A direct tourism impact occurs where there is a direct (physical and economic) relationship between the visitor and producer of a good or service. For more information, refer to the Methodology section.

Gross Domestic product

  • In current price terms, tourism GDP rose 76.6% to $63.0b in 2022-23 to be above the 2018-19 level of $60.3b. Of this, tourism GVA was $57.2b and tourism net taxes on products $5.7b.
  • In chain volume terms, tourism GDP rose 60.1% in 2022-23 but stands at 90.1% of its 2018-19 level.

Consumption

  • In purchasers' price terms, domestic consumption increased 53.7% to $138.4b in 2022-23, the highest level in the time series.
  • In chain volume terms, domestic consumption increased 38.8% to $124.9b in 2022-23, the highest level in the time series. 
  • In purchasers' price terms, international consumption increased from $5.9b to $26.1b in 2022-23 but remains well below the 2018-19 level of $39.3b. 
  • In chain volume terms, international consumption increased from $5.9b to $23.6b in 2022-23 but remains well below the 2018-19 level of $42.5b. 

Industry gross value added, current prices

  • The accommodation industry's GVA increased to $7.7b in 2022-23 which is 25.5% higher than the 2018-19 level of $6.2b. 
  • The cafes, restaurants and takeaway food services industry's GVA increased to $7.0b which is 17.6% higher than the 2018-19 level of $5.9b.
  • The travel agency and information centre services industry's GVA increased to $6.1b which is 7.8% higher than the 2018-19 level of $5.7b.
  • The air, water and other transport industry's GVA increased to $7.1b but remains 9.2% below the 2018-19 level of $7.9b. 
  • The education and training industry's GVA increased from $1.2b to $3.2b but remains 47.9% below the 2018-19 level of $6.1b.

Tourism employment

  • Tourism accounted for 4.1% of the filled jobs in the whole economy in 2022-23 but this is still lower than the 5.1% of filled jobs in 2018-19.
  • The greatest increases in filled jobs in 2022-23 occurred in cafes, restaurants and takeaway food services (up 58,100 jobs), retail trade (up 32,500 jobs), accommodation (up 22,900 jobs) and education and training (up 19,600 jobs).
  • Increases were recorded in both full-time filled jobs (up 46.0% to 317,600 jobs) and part-time filled jobs (up 37.2% to 308,800 jobs) in 2022-23.
  • In 2022-23, filled jobs worked by females increased more than those filled by males with increases of 42.9% to 345,500 jobs and 39.9% to 280,900 jobs respectively.

Key considerations in data interpretation

Tourism estimates

The International Visitor Survey (IVS) data sourced from Tourism Research Australia (TRA) is one of the key inputs to this account. Due to the COIVD-19 pandemic, IVS interviews were paused from June quarter 2020 to June quarter 2022 and data were imputed. Full sampling interviewing returned from March quarter 2023. Following a review by the TRA of the imputation method and changes to ABS Overseas Arrivals and Departures data used for IVS benchmarking, data for 2021-22 has been revised.

For more information see International Visitor Survey Methodology and Overseas Arrivals and Departures. 

Changes in this issue

New process to derive economic measures

This publication includes a methodological update. This update was undertaken to modernise the processing system and enhance the methodology. Consequently, the estimates for the 2019-20, 2020-21 and 2021-22 periods, which were previously published, have been revised. For an overview of the updated methodology, please refer to the Methodology page.

Status in employment

The term ‘status in employment’ has been changed to full-time and part-time employment to be consistent with Labour Force, Australia. 

Updated job distribution in transport

The jobs that were previously reported under rail transport are now included in the air, water, and other transport industry.

Analysis of results

The contribution of tourism to the Australian economy has been measured using the demand generated by visitors and the supply of tourism products by domestic producers.

The diagram below provides a graphical depiction of the flow of tourism consumption through the Australian economy in 2022-23. What the diagram highlights is that, unlike traditional ANZSIC industries in the Australian National Accounts, tourism is not measured by the output of a single industry, but rather from the demand side i.e. the activities of visitors. It is the products that visitors consume that define what the tourism economy produces. The diagram shows how the value of internal tourism consumption (as measured by the sum of international and domestic tourism consumption in purchaser's prices, i.e. the price the visitor pays) is disaggregated to either form part of tourism GVA/tourism GDP, is excluded as it forms part of the "second round" indirect effects of tourism, or is output that was not domestically produced.

Flow of tourism consumption through the Australian Economy (a)(b)(c)

Flow of tourism consumption through the Australian Economy (a)(b)(c)

A flow chart representing the flow of tourism consumption through the Australian economy, year ending June 2023. Note, totals may not add due to rounding; tourism consumption is measured in purchasers’ prices unless otherwise specified. Other monetary aggregates are measured in basic prices; all figures in this diagram are in current price terms unless otherwise specified. Domestic tourist consumption to the value of $138,423 million is comprised of business and government, to the value of $25,433 million, and household, to the value of $112,990 million. International tourism consumption, to the value of $26,105 million, combines with domestic tourist consumption to create internal tourism consumption, to the value of $164,528 million. Internal tourism consumption splits into three values; internal tourism consumption at basic prices, to the value of $138,492 million; cost to retailers of imported goods sold directly to visitors, to the value of $13,506 million, and net taxes on tourism products to the value of $12,530 million. Internal tourism consumption at basic prices is comprised of cost to retailers of domestic goods sold directly to visitors, including wholesale and transport margins supplied domestically, to the value of $24,667 million; and direct tourism output, to the value of $113,825 million. Direct tourism output flows into two values; intermediate inputs used by tourism industries, to the value of $56,595 million; and direct tourism value added, to the value of $57,230 million. Cost to retailers of domestic goods sold directly to visitors and intermediate inputs used by tourism industries connect to second round (indirect) effects to supplier industries. Net taxes on tourism products flows into two values; net taxes on tourism products (in the case of goods, this will only include the net taxes attributable to retail trade activities), to the value of $5,720 million; and net taxes on indirect tourism output to the value of $6,810 million. Direct tourism value added and net taxes on tourism products combine to create direct tourism GDP, to the value of $62,950 million. Direct tourism value added is used to estimate total tourism employed persons, to the value of 626,400 tourism filled jobs.

Revisions

Revisions are a necessary and expected part of accounts compilation as data sources are updated and improved over time. This issue includes revisions to tourism aggregates from 2019-20 to 2021-22. 

Revisions in the 2022-23 release include:

  • Revisions to both domestic and international tourism expenditure as a result of the TSA annual balancing and confrontation process. This is particularly the case for tourism products where the estimates have been modelled using a range of source data.
  • Replacing modelled 2021-22 net taxes, imports and margins data with the latest issue of Australian National Accounts: Supply Use Tables (available on a T-1 basis) for 2021-22. 
  • Revisions related to the new process to derive economic measures.
  • Revisions to international tourism consumption due to the incorporation of updated 2021-22 data from Tourism Research Australia and updated data from the Survey of International Trade in Services for 2020-21 and 2021-22. 

Please note, the revisions to the chain volume level estimates across the time series are an expected part of re-referencing the indexes to 100 in the reference year.

Data downloads

Australian National Accounts: Tourism satellite account

Data files
Download xlsx [279.16 KB]

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Previous catalogue number

This release previously used catalogue number 5249.0.

Methodology

Australian National Accounts: Tourism Satellite Account methodology, 2022-23 financial year