About this report
This report provides data and insights regarding travellers with accessibility needs in Australia. These insights have been drawn from data obtained from Austrade’s National Visitors Survey in the June quarter (April, May and June) 2023.
There are 5 main topics in the report:
- Size and scope of the domestic accessible tourism market
- Spending profile of travellers with accessible needs
- Characteristics of travellers with accessibility needs
- Reasons for travel and activities
- Accommodation and travel party types of overnight travellers
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Statistical snapshot
Size and scope of the domestic accessible tourism market (June 2023 Quarter)
Number of domestic trips:
- 23% of all domestic trips were by travellers with accessibility needs
- 18.5 million trips were taken by accessible travellers.
Value of domestic travel:
- $6.8 billion (total trip spend)
- 21% of total domestic tourism industry spend.
Note: "Trips" are composed of:
- overnight trips – one or more nights at least 40 kilometres from home
- day trips – round trip of at least 50 kilometres from home. No overnight stay.
Breakdown of overnight and daytrip travel
Travellers with accessibility needs took more daytrips than overnight trips. However, the value of overnight trips was greater than that of daytrips. This breakdown in June quarter 2023 was:
Daytrips
- Travellers with accessibility needs took 12.6 million daytrips (24% of domestic total daytrips).
- Total trip spend on these daytrips was $1.8 billion (25% of domestic total for daytrip spend).
Overnight trips
- Travellers with accessibility needs took 5.9 million overnight trips (21% of domestic total domestic overnight trips).
- Total trip spend on these overnight trips was $5.0 billion (20% of domestic total for overnight trip spend).
Average length of overnight trips
- Travellers with accessibility needs took slightly longer trips than other travellers on average (3.6 nights compared to 3.4 nights).
- Of the overnight trips of travellers with accessibility needs, 70% were between 1 and 3 nights and 23% were between 4 and 7 nights. Only 6% of their trips were for longer than one week.
Interstate vs Intrastate Travel (Overnight Trips)
- Travellers with accessibility needs were substantially more likely than other travellers to remain within their home state on overnight trips.
- In the June quarter 2023, 73% of travellers with accessibility needs remained within their home state, compared with 67% for other travellers. Conversely, only 27% of travellers with accessibility needs travelled interstate (compared with 33% of other travellers).
Terminology note
A “traveller with accessibility needs” is a domestic traveller with one or more of the following:
- vision impairment (not corrected by glasses or contact lenses)
- hearing impairment
- need for a wheelchair or mobility scooter
- dependency on a mobility aid
- mobility limitations
- learning or understanding difficulties
- mental health condition
- chemical sensitivity or food allergies.
