Travel recovered in 2022, but still dwarfed by 2019 levels, ABS reveals
International travel in Australia has seen a resurgence throughout 2022, but the total level only reached 45 per cent of 2019 levels, according to date from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
Jenny Dobak, ABS head of migration statistics, said that while total arrivals for 2022 dwarfed 2019 levels, monthly figures showed the recovery building through the year. Total arrivals in December 2022 reached 1.3 million, compared with less than 300,000 in the first month of the year.
“Short-term visitor arrivals in 2022 remained lower than before the COVID-19 pandemic, with the number of arrivals in January 2022 just 8 per cent of the same period in 2019,” Dobak said.
“However, the number of arrivals increased steadily over the year and by December had grown to 60 per cent of the same period in 2019.
“Similarly, by December 2022, the number of short-term resident returns had increased to 71 per cent of the corresponding month in 2019.”
New Zealand is now the largest source of visitors (698,000) and replaces China, which was the largest source of visitors in 2019. Indonesia, Canada and Germany were all in the top 10 source countries for 2022 after not featuring in the top 10 in 2019.
While New Zealand was largest source of visitors, arrivals from India (303,000) had the strongest recovery in 2022, reaching 76 per cent of its pre-pandemic level from 2019. Singapore (296,000) was the next strongest of the top 10 source countries, reaching 62 per cent of its 2019 level.
In contrast, there were 89,000 arrivals from China, which accounted for just 6 per cent of its pre-pandemic level.
Email the Travel Weekly team at traveldesk@travelweekly.com.au
australian bureau of statistics Jenny DobakLatest News
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