Indonesia becomes Australia’s top tourist destination for the first time in 50 years, overtaking New Zealand in the process.

Indonesia was the leading destination country for Australians travelling overseas, accounting for 1,368,050 trips as of December 2023, numbers from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released Thursday shows.

Australian tourism to Indonesia declined by 2.3 per cent when to compared to the 2019 heights before COVID-19, with 1.4 million trips.

Latest ABS statistics also reports that 86 per cent of tourists went to Indonesia for a holiday and 7 per cent to visit friends or relatives.

This is the first time New Zealand has been replaced as the top tourist destination for Australians at 1.26 million trips, with Indonesia previously overtaking the USA to reach second place with 1.09 million Australian tourists back in 2014.

“New Zealand has been the leading destination annually since our records began nearly 50 years ago,” says Jenny Dobak, ABS head of migration statistics.

“Short-term resident returns are still climbing towards pre-pandemic levels. They are yet to reach the peak of 2019.”

Indonesia dominates as the top Australian tourism destination across ASEAN, with Thailand far below at 500,000 trips, Vietnam at 332,000 and Singapore at 326,000.

Boeing Regional Asia marketing director Miyuru Sandaruwan says that Indonesia hold much promise for the future, guarding its status as the largest market with the highest growth in ASEAN’s aviation industry.

“Although the region (ASEAN) is growing as a whole until 2030, Indonesia will continue to be the largest market in the region,” Miyuru said at a conference November last year, as quoted by Kompas.

Malaysian tourists still bring in the most visitors to Indonesia at 138,000, trips, with Australia coming in second bringing in 129,000 as of October 2023, says Sandiaga Uno, Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy, at a conference in December.

Meanwhile, Indonesia ranks 9th for Australia’s short-term visitor arrivals with 201.5 thousand trips, placing in between South Korea and Hong Kong, according to the same ABS statistics.

New Zealand still takes the top spot for short-term visitors at 1.27 million tourists in December 2023.