Australians are choosing to travel to Asia over the US. It's not because of Trump
According to Australian Bureau of Statistics data released last week, the number of Australian residents visiting Japan nearly doubled from about 484,000 in 2018-19 to more than 910,000 in 2024-25, making it the third most popular destination for Australian travellers, overtaking the US.
While China, Vietnam and Indonesia also recorded continued growth, with the latter – attracting 1.7 million visitors – remaining Australia's most popular overseas destination, fewer than 750,000 Australian residents chose to travel to the US.
That figure was up on 714,000 the previous financial year but remained lower than the nearly 1.1 million who travelled to the States in 2018-19, before the pandemic.
Australian Travel Industry Association chief executive Dean Long said that while US President Donald Trump had some dampening impact on Australian business travel to the US, there was little effect on visits for leisure.
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'It's not having as big an impact as we originally anticipated,' he said, noting instances of Australians being stopped at the US border were consistent with the pre-Trump era.
'There's definitely been some loss of business events, but in the leisure market, people still want to go do things they can only do in the US.'
Long said the more popular Asian destinations were those where costs had not risen dramatically over the past few years, as well as those that had experienced favourable exchange rate movements.
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