Chinese tourists flock to Australia during Golden Week holiday
Australia has become a top destination for Chinese tourists during the Golden Week holiday, with many visiting popular spots like the Whitsundays and Sydney. The surge in bookings has been driven by a growing preference for 'quality trips' in small groups or solo travel.
Australia has emerged as a top destination for Chinese tourists during the Golden Week holiday, with many flocking to popular spots like the Whitsundays and Sydney.
"At some tourist spots, it felt like I could almost speak Mandarin to everyone," said Fei Chang, a Chinese tourist who visited Australia with her husband over the past week.
A surge in bookings
According to Trip.com, a popular Chinese travel booking platform, Australia was one of the most sought-after destinations for Chinese travellers. The company noted that people were taking "longer and further trips beyond the region" this year.
Flight bookings from China to Australia for October 2026 were up 19 per cent compared to October 2025, according to International Air Transport Association (IATA) data. China's official immigration data also showed that there were more than 2.2 million inbound and outbound passengers during the Mid-Autumn Festival, a 16.8 per cent increase compared to the same holiday last year.
Zhang Cheng, a Melbourne travel agent and owner of Great Wall Travel Services, reported a surge in bookings over the past week. Her agency takes bookings primarily from Chinese-speaking tourists.
"We are fully booked with two-day tours to the Great Ocean Road," she said.
A shift towards 'quality trips'
Ms Chang said she was shocked to see so many Chinese tourists in Australia. China was Australia's second-largest inbound tourist market in 2025, with 1.04 million visitors, a 17 per cent increase year-on-year. However, this was still below the 1.4 million visitors from China pre-COVID, in 2019.
Ms Zhang noted that before the pandemic, people tended to travel in big groups, but they now prefer "quality trips" in small groups or going on road trips by themselves.
The Approved Destination Status (ADS) scheme, a bilateral agreement that facilitates group tours from China to Australia, was paused during COVID and resumed in 2023. More than 300,000 tourists reportedly joined an ADS group tour in the 2019 financial year, according to Austrade data. In the 2026 financial year, the number of visitors on ADS group trips dropped to 70,205.