Great Barrier Reef tourist numbers
Tourism visitation to the entire Great Barrier Reef Marine Park for the 2023-24 financial year was reported at approximately 2.24 million total visitor days (2,247466). Visitation in 2023-24 was 4.65% lower than the eight-year pre-pandemic average for the same period of 2.45 million visits. Since 2020-21 there has been three consecutive annual increases in overall visitation to the GBRMP with visitation during 2023-24 increasing by 2% from the previous financial year.
Some regions are still waiting to return to the pre-pandemic averages, although others have seen an increase in visitation. The Whitsunday Plan of Management Area is 7.7% higher than the pre-pandemic eight-year average of 891,154 visitors, however recorded 7.25% (64,631) fewer visitors than 2022-23; whereas the Cairns Area Plan of Management recorded 24.7% less visitors than their pre-pandemic average of 1,147,318 visitors and also recorded 1% (7,728) fewer visitors compared to 2022-23.
The following graphs show tourism visitation to the whole Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and then to the areas with Plans of Management. These numbers include full day visits, part day visits, coral viewing activities, scenic flights and visits by those who are exempt from paying the Environmental Management Charge. Full day visits are the best gauge of the general trend of tourism in the Marine Park. These figures do not include transfer passengers.
Important information about this data
This data is updated biannually following receipt of the Environmental Management Charge returns from commercial tourist operations.
- The number of visitor days to the Marine Park is calculated at follows:
- Full day visits: a day trip of more than three hours.
- Part day visits:
- a trip that is less than three hours.
- The first day of a trip entering the Marine Park after 5pm
- The last day of a trip leaving the Marine Park before 6am.
- Exempt visits: passengers who are not required to pay the Environmental Management Charge.
- Overnight trips are recorded as multiple full days, for example, a stay of two days and one night is recorded as two full days.
- Children less than 4 years of age
- People who are engaged in the tourism industry who are visiting the Marine Park for trade familiarisation
- Passengers for whom another operator has already paid EMC on that day
- The fourth and subsequent days for passengers on extended charters.
- Overnight trips are recorded as multiple full days, for example, a stay of two days and one night is recorded as two full days.
- Scenic flights: passengers on sight-seeing flights.
- Coral viewing: a standalone activity involving visitors viewing marine life from a semi-submersible or glass bottom boat. Note: this does not include glass-bottomed and semi-submersible excursions which are ancillary to another tourist program.
- These graphs do not include transfer passengers (e.g. ferry passengers)
- The data presented has not been validated.
The average percentage of quarterly logbook returns completed over the past four years (2020 to 2023) calendar years are as follows:
- 2020-21 financial year was 99.5 percent
- 2021-22 financial year was 99.2 percent
- 2022-23 financial year was 96.5 percent
- 2023-24 financial year was 98.3 percent
Visitation Data
The 2023-24 aggregated data for visitation is available in excel format.
