Australian National Accounts: Tourism Satellite Account

• Tourism GDP rose 26.4% in 2021-22 but stands at 56.8% of its 2018-19 level.
• Gross value added (GVA) rose 24.7% to $32.1b in 2021-22 but remains below the 2018-19 level of $56.7b.
• Household consumption increased 4.8% to $72.2b in 2021-22.
• Business consumption increased 18.4% to $12.8b in 2021-22. 

• Tourism GDP rose 31.3% to $36.5b in 2021-22 but remains below the 2018-19 level of $60.3b.
• Tourism GVA increased 29.5% to $33.4b in 2021-22 and represents 60.4% of 2018-19 levels.

• The air, water and other transport industry's GVA increased by $1.8b in 2021-22, however is only at 35.3% of 2018-19 levels. 
• The education and training industry's GVA increased by $1.0b in 2021-22, however is only at 21.6% of 2018-19 levels.
• The growth in domestic tourism activity has seen the GVA for both the accommodation and the cafes, restaurants and takeaway food outlets industries rebound in 2021-22, with increases of 17.1% and 7.8% respectively.
• The travel agency and tour operators industry's GVA increased by $1.7b, however is only at 56.4% of 2018-19 levels.

• Tourism accounted for 3.5% of the filled jobs in the whole economy in 2021-22 but still down from 2018-19 when it accounted for 5.1% of filled jobs.
• The greatest increases in filled jobs in 2021-22 occurred in cafes, restaurants and takeaway food services (up 20,800 jobs), accommodation (up 18,400 jobs), education and training (up 10,500 jobs), travel agency and information centre services (up 9,200 jobs) and sports and recreation services (up 8,900 jobs).
• Increases were recorded in both full-time filled jobs (up 26.6% to 245,500 jobs) and part-time filled jobs (up 17.1% to 256,000 jobs) in 2021-22.
• In 2021-22, filled jobs worked by females increased more than those filled by males with an increase of 24.6% to 271,600 jobs and 18.1% to 229,900 jobs respectively.

The International Visitor Survey (IVS) data sourced from Tourism Research Australia (TRA) is one of the key inputs to this account. Due to the international border closure and the potential public health risk during the pandemic, IVS interviews were paused from September 2020. For information on TRA COVID-19 changes, please refer to their webpage. 

The IVS data used to compile the 2021-22 TSA is therefore partially imputed. For details on the potential implications of this, please refer to the Methodology section on Measurement Error. 

As mentioned in the previous release, the ABS has moved to an annual coefficient-only benchmark. In addition to compiling the 2019-20 benchmark, the ABS has compiled a preliminary benchmark for 2020-21 to capture structural changes in the tourism economy during that period.

The main source of data for tourism employment has changed from the Labour Force Survey to the Labour Account. Due to the large number of secondary jobs and the highly casualised nature of the tourism workforce, filled jobs from the Labour Account is a more meaningful measure than employed persons from the Labour Force Survey. This change brings the annual tourism employment numbers into alignment with the Quarterly Tourism Labour Statistics (QTLS). See the Methodology section for more detail.

Data for hours worked for 2020-21 and 2021-22 have not been published this year. The methodology for determining tourism hours worked is based on industry value add benchmark ratios (see Methodology section). As value added estimates have been impacted by COVID support payments, the benchmark ratios are unable to determine the number of hours each worker spends in directly serving tourists. While it is expected that the productivity estimate would show a fall, the ABS is unable to determine the magnitude of this fall. 

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 2021-22. 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 and tourism GDP or is excluded as it either forms part of the "second round" indirect effects of tourism or the output was not domestically produced.

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 2017-18 to 2020-21. 

Revisions in the 2021-22 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 2020-21 net taxes, imports and margins data with the latest issue of Australian National Accounts: Supply Use Tables (available on a T-1 basis) for 2020-21. 
• Revisions made to international tourism consumption are mainly due to the incorporation of updated data from the Survey of International Trade in Services (SITS) for 2019-20 and 2020-21 and an adjustment to the 2019-20 proportion of short-term visitors arriving for education purposes. 

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

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This release previously used catalogue number 5249.0.