National Visitor Survey Monthly Snapshot, Tourism Research Australia, August 2020

Coronavirus (COVID-19) is having a large impact on Australia’s domestic tourism market. Our monthly snapshots make it easier to monitor changes in tourism activity in your state or territory, and nationally. You can:

• view results each month or quarterly
• compare results for the previous month and year

Domestic tourism January to August 2020

• There were losses of $24.7 billion (47%) to domestic overnight tourism since the start of 2020 to the end of August. This was due to the impacts of bushfires and COVID-19.
• A further $6.5 billion was lost through domestic day trips since the start of 2020. This brought total domestic losses to $31.2 billion compared to the same period in 2019.
• Domestic overnight travel continued to be severely affected by COVID-19 in August 2020. However, results in some states (Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania and Northern Territory) improved. This was due to stronger intrastate travel.
• Continued closure of interstate borders and Victoria’s second wave of COVID-19 stifled further improvement at the national level. Results remained similar to July.

Overnight trips and spend August 2020

• There was a softening in the number of visitors and spend in New South Wales in August 2020 (down 38% and 51% respectively). This was due to a deterioration in interstate travel from Victoria and Queensland that, unlike some other states, was not offset by an increase in intrastate travel.
• Overall, overnight trips fell 40% to 5.2 million. Spend fell further, down 53% to $3.0 billion (a loss of $3.3 billion on August 2019).
• The larger decline in spend can be attributed to large losses in higher value interstate travel. This was due to:
  – border closures
  – limited capacity to participate in various activities due to social distancing rules

Regional visitors and spend August 2020

• August results show that regional areas fared better than capital cities. For example, domestic overnight trip spend in Sydney dropped 85%, compared with 28% in regional New South Wales. Spend in Brisbane and the Gold Coast also fell 49% compared with 6% for regional Queensland.
• Some regional areas recorded increased numbers of domestic overnight visitors during August. This includes:
  – Queensland (up 3%)
  – Western Australia (up 4%)
  – South Australia (up 6%)

Data tables

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