Almost a quarter of travellers in Australia last year had accessible needs and contributed almost $30 billion to the country’s tourism economy.
A new report from Tourism Research Australia has, for the first time, captured data on accessible tourism in Australia over a full year period.
It defined “travellers with accessible needs” as a group inclusive of all respondents to Austrade’s National Visitor Survey or International Visitor Survey who identified as having a disability or long-term health condition or travelled with a person who did.
The report showed, in 2024, 70.5 million trips were taken by travellers with accessible needs, which equated to 22 percent of all trips in Australia for the year.
The total spend of those travellers was $29.2 billion, accounting for 17 percent of the total spend by all travellers.
When looking at the types of traveller, the data revealed 342,000 trips were taken by international visitors with accessibility needs, representing four percent of the total traveller number.
The report showed New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria were the three most popular destination states in terms of total trip nights, for both travellers with accessible needs and other travellers.
It stated travellers with accessible needs spent 31 percent of their total nights in New South Wales, 24 percent in Queensland and 21 percent in Victoria.
Read the full report: Accessible tourism in Australia.
