Chinese visitor numbers to Queensland are finally showing signs of recovery but remain well below pre-COVID levels.
Australia Bureau of Statistics figures, released today, show that 13,400 tourists from China visited the state in January this year.
This was well above the 8690 recorded in the same month in 2024 but only a little over half of the 25,360 recorded pre-COVID in 2019.
China is Queensland’s second largest source country for tourism, behind New Zealand. New Zealand numbers hit 31,790 in January, above the 2019 level of 29,470.
Nationally, short-term visitor arrivals to Australia hit 710,040 in January, an increase of 17.6 percent on the previous year.
Visitor arrivals were still 2.9 percent lower than the pre-COVID level in January 2019.
Across Australia, China was the largest source country for tourists, accounting for 16 percent of all visitor arrivals.
Between January 2024 and January 2025, Western Australia recorded the greatest increase in overseas tourism numbers at 34.5 percent.
This was followed by Tasmania at 27.5 percent.
Queensland and Victoria both recorded 20 percent increases and NSW was up 13.3 percent.
Curbs placed on international student numbers were evident in the figures. Nationally 80,830 international students arrived in January, 2070 fewer than the previous year and 10.4 percent lower than pre-COVID levels.
The full report is on the ABS website.
