New data from the Australian Travel Industry Association (ATIA) shows Australians are shunning the United States and redirecting travel spend to Asia at a rate that points to “something more than a short-term trend”.

The ATIA Travel Trends April 2026 report shows outbound travel to the USA fell 4.8% for the year to February 2026, with a sharper 9.7% decline in February alone.

At the same time, Vietnam grew 16.1%, China 15.9% and Japan 15.6%.

Indonesia and New Zealand continued to carry the highest volumes overall.

”The USA numbers are the story in this data. Australians are travelling in record numbers, but they are increasingly choosing Asia over America, and the trend is clear across multiple months and multiple destinations,” said Dean Long, chief executive of ATIA.

“Vietnam, Japan and China are all growing strongly. The USA is not.”

China leads inbound surge

Inbound, China is the star for Australia. Inbound visitors from China to Australia surged 79.5% in February year-on-year, the strongest single-market monthly result in the data.

For the full year to February 2026, China grew 21.3% to become Australia's second-largest inbound market at 1.1 million visitors, behind only New Zealand at 1.44 million.

Overall inbound tourism to Australia reached 9,099,540 visitors for the year, up 9.5%.

Long added, ”The China inbound result is extraordinary. A 79.5% surge in February from our second-largest inbound market is a major economic signal for the travel industry.”