Australians are choosing to travel to Asia over the US. It’s not because of Trump

Japan, China and Vietnam are fast becoming the top travel destinations for Australians as fewer residents fly to the United States than before the pandemic.

According to Australian Bureau of Statistics travel 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, the latter attracting 1.7 million visitors in 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.

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.

“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.

“A five to 10¢ shift in currency doesn’t really change people’s intentions,” he said. “But the reason why Japan is firing as well as it is is that we’ve had a once-in-a-generation move towards parity. That makes a destination that has always been on the bucket list really attractive.”

At various points last year, one Australian dollar was fetching more than 100 Japanese yen. The last time that happened was in 2014.

The growth in visits to China, now Australia’s fifth most popular travel destination, was largely due to the significant Chinese expat community, Long said, but had also been boosted by the introduction of visa-free travel.

Meanwhile, those still travelling to higher-cost destinations such as the US were generally spending less time there, Long said, high accommodation costs being a significant barrier.

Over the next 12 months, Long expects these trends to broadly continue, with Indonesia remaining the top destination. But he said Vietnam was a country to watch.

“It’s fast becoming one of Australia’s favourite holiday destinations,” he said.

“When I look at Vietnam, the growth, and how many people are travelling there, it’s got a real buzz behind it. I think if you watch in the next 12 months, we’re going to have a lot of Australians going there.”

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