Western Australia welcomed a record 1.024 million international visitors in the year to October 2025 — beating its pre-COVID best and recovering two years ahead of the national forecast — powered by direct Europe flights, a blockbuster events calendar and the UK leading the way home.
The headline is speed: WA was the first Australian jurisdiction to recover international volumes, posting the strongest year-on-year growth of any state and an 8.7% share of the national market. The 1.1 million international visitors in 2025 spent about A$3.4 billion; total visitor spend across the state hit A$19.2 billion on 11 million overnight visitors — both above target.
The mix tells the aviation story: Britain is the largest market at 163,000 visitors and A$414 million — the direct London flight made Perth the UK's front door to Australia — while China leads by value at A$503 million, up 66% year on year. France grew 80%, Japanese spending rose 85% (the ANA daily doing its work), and India delivered around 50,000 visitors as the priority growth market.
WA's major events injected close to A$223 million into the state economy in 2025–26. The WWE Takeover Weekend in October 2025 — SmackDown, Crown Jewel: Perth and Raw — pulled more than 40,000 fans to RAC Arena, 12,500 of them from interstate. The Ashes West Test in November drew 8,500 visitors from the UK and 11,000 from interstate, with 100,000 through the gates in two days — the highest-attended Test in Perth Stadium history.
The calendar keeps compounding: the inaugural Perth Sail GP sold out Fremantle with 15,000 fans in February 2026, AFL Origin returned after 27 years to a sold-out Optus Stadium, and business events — worth A$1.71 billion in 2025 — are booked out to 2030. Tourism WA's events portfolio returns A$3.48 for every dollar invested.
Our read: come for an event, stay for the gap after it. The city is at its best the week after a blockbuster — stadium crowds gone, restaurants bookable, Rottnest ferries half empty — and November to March is the window that stacks Ashes cricket, Sail GP and the beach season. Fly in direct from London or Rome if you can: arriving over the Darling Scarp at dawn after one sleep is the single best way to enter Australia.
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