Ireland short term visits to Australia reach 12,060 in January, up 7.9pc

IIrish visits to Australia in January for short term holidays in January was 12,060, up 7.9pc on 2025 and 67.7pc on pre-pandemic2026 according to the latest release from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Rolling annual was up 17pc on the twelve months leading to January 2025.

Overall, Australia recorded 716,680 short term visitor arrivals in January, an increase of 0.9pc on the figure from January in the previous year and equates to an additional 6,640 trips.

New Zealand remained the largest source country for these visitors while New South Wales received the highest number of short term visitor arrivals and the Northern Territory recorded the lowest. The data forms part of the Overseas Arrivals and Departures release published on 17 March 2026 and shows that total arrivals reached 2,519,500 which marks a rise of 5.7pc on one year earlier.

Short term resident returns stood at 1,665,100 in the same month an increase of 7.8pc on the corresponding period last year. These figures indicate a modest continuation of the recovery in inbound travel although volumes stay below the levels seen in January 2019 prior to the pandemic..