Promoting Australia as a premier tourist destination for Chinese travellers has been an important focus for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese during his visit to China this week.
China is Australia’s largest tourism market by expenditure, with a total spend of AU$9.2 billion in the 12 months to March 2025 – representing a quarter of all short-term international visitor expenditure for that period.
A critical market to Australia’s tourism and the accommodation sector, Chinese tourism is also growing at a faster pace than other international markets, with a 26% increase in visitors in the past 12 months and a total of 860,000 trips to Australia.
“Not only is Australia’s beef, barley, red wine and rock lobster the best in the world – we’re the best place in the world to come for a holiday,” said Prime Minister Albanese.
“Expanding our tourism relationship with China will mean more jobs for Australians and a boost for Australian businesses.”
Accommodation Australia welcomed the focus on tourism during Prime Minister Albanese’s visit to China, saying it could assist in achieving up to a $5 billion in tourism boost to the economy.
“It’s great to see the Prime Minister strengthening the relationship with China and prioritising our travel and tourism sectors,” said Accommodation Australia CEO James Goodwin.
“There’s been steady growth in the past few years, but we’d love to see Chinese visitor numbers continue to increase, and even better if they return to close to the numbers coming here before Covid hit.
“There has rightly been a lot of focus in the Chinese relationship on trade of physical products, but tourism is a major export earner supporting close to three quarters of a million jobs in the Australian economy.”
In the year ending March 2025, Chinese tourists spent over 7 million nights in Australian hotels and resorts.
“A return to anything close to the pre-pandemic visitation could yield a further $5 billion in revenue,” Goodwin said.
“Chinese travellers love what Australia has to offer so we welcome more promotion of not just capital cities but our amazing regional attractions and support making it easier for people to travel here.”
During his trip, Prime Minister Albanese witnessed Tourism Australia and Trip.com Group, one of the world’s largest travel agencies, sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to promote Australia as a destination for travellers from China and key Asian markets.
“The efforts of Tourism Australia in signing an MoU with Trip.com, the world’s largest booking platform, and also their promotional efforts in this important market are also to be congratulated,” Goodwin said.