International tourism to Australia continued to recover at a faster pace than the domestic market during the March quarter of 2026, with overseas visitor spending and arrivals recording stronger year-on-year growth than domestic overnight travel.
The latest Tourism Research Australia (TRA) figures show Australia welcomed 2.3 million international visitors during the January to March 2026 quarter, a 9% increase on the same period in 2025. Those visitors spent $13.0 billion while in Australia, up 15% year-on-year, while total trip expenditure, including spending outside Australia, reached $17.8 billion, an increase of 12%. Visitor nights also rose 10 per cent to 98.2 million.
Domestic tourism produced a more mixed result over the same period.
Australians took 71.2 million domestic day trips during the March quarter, an increase of 9% compared with the March quarter 2025. Spending on those trips reached $13.0 billion, representing the strongest growth across the domestic market with a 30% increase year-on-year. Holiday travel accounted for 36.8 million of those day trips, while 21.7 million were taken to visit friends and relatives and 5.1 million were for business purposes.
The domestic overnight market remained comparatively subdued. Tourism Research Australia said overnight travel results were softer than the corresponding period a year earlier, although the March 2026 release does not present headline national quarterly overnight totals in its summary. The agency notes that comparisons with earlier years should be interpreted with care following the introduction of its new Domestic Tourism Statistics methodology in January 2025, which combines survey data with mobility data and includes estimates for prior periods.
The March quarter results indicate that international tourism delivered the strongest overall recovery during the first three months of 2026. International visitor arrivals increased by the same rate as domestic day trips (9 per cent), while international visitor expenditure grew by 15 per cent, compared with 30 per cent growth in domestic day-trip spending. However, domestic overnight tourism remained comparatively soft, making international tourism the strongest-performing overnight travel segment during the quarter.