Tourism in Australia is an important part of the Australian economy, and comprises domestic and international visitors. Australia is the fortieth most visited country in the world according to the World Tourism Organization. In the financial year 2018/19, tourism was Australia's fourth-largest export and over the previous decade was growing faster than national GDP growth. At the time it represented 3.1% of Australia's GDP contributing A$60.8 billion to the national economy.

In the calendar year up to December 2019, there were 8.7 million international visitors in Australia. Tourism employed 666,000 people in Australia in 2018–19, 1 in 21 jobs across the workforce. About 48% of people employed in tourism were full-time and 54% female. Tourism also contributed 8.2% of Australia's total export earnings in 2018–19.

Popular Australian destinations mainly include the coastal capital cities of Sydney and Melbourne, as well as other high-profile destinations including the other coastal cities of Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Gold Coast, and the Great Barrier Reef, the world's largest reef. Other popular locations include Uluru, the Australian outback, and the Tasmanian wilderness. The unique Australian wildlife is also another significant point of interest in the country's tourism.

From the colonial days, the idea of travel has been more natural to Australians than to people long-established at one from their homes, was prone to continue their search for wealth or security for a while, or, having settled down, to return to the old countries to visit their kin and refresh old memories. The opening of new lands, the establishment of industries and towns, and the consequent dispersal of people over Australia created a habit of mobility and enterprise which encouraged Australians to face the hardships of early travel by coach, on horseback or by ship. Even so, the slow and uncomfortable modes of travel and the vast distances separating Australian towns tended to restrict travel to essential journeys for purposes of trade, to pursue an occupation or to settle. This changed somewhat with the advent of rail travel.

The initial emphasis in tourism for purposes of pleasure was strongest on travel to resorts near the main population centres. These included the Blue Mountains in New South Wales and the hill and coast resorts close to Melbourne and other major Victorian cities. The existing railway services radiating from those cities, together with the 'feeder' horse-drawn, and later motor, coach transport connecting with the railways, rendered the State Government railway tourist bureaux the main means for selling intrastate, and even some interstate, travel.

Travel for all purposes increased steadily after the Second World War. This period saw the establishment of the Australian National Travel Association with bureaux in the UK and USA. The organisation received government funding on top of industry contributions and promoted the country 'vigorously' via a poster campaign, and from 1934 to 1974 via Walkabout magazine. From August 1946, Walkabout also doubled as the official journal of the newly formed Australian Geographical Society (AGS), founded with a £5,000 grant from ANTA, its banner subscript reading 'Journal of the Australian Geographical Society. This role is now filled by Australian Geographic magazine. Later it became ‘Australia's Way of Life Magazine’ when supported by the Australian National Publicity Association and later the Australian Tourist Commission.

Tourism traffic continued to be mainly by rail, but also by sea, although the family motor era began in the 1930s to participate in the shorter intrastate traffic. A considerable fleet of passenger ships like those of State Shipping Service of Western Australia and the Adelaide Steamship Company provided frequent and popular services linking all ports around the country. Other services linked Sydney and Melbourne with Tasmanian ports with some still operating ferry services to this day. The winter cruise of those days to Queensland ports could be regarded as the equivalent of today's drive or flight north for a winter holiday at the Gold Coast or a Barrier Reef Island, or today's shorter South Pacific cruises. The first cruises from Australia to New Zealand were organised in the summer of 1934–35, and Australians were travelling to Britain for as low as $78 in tourist class in the years immediately preceding the Second World War.

In the period following the Second World War the advent of new and improved methods of transportation, combined with rising standards of living and the energetic publicising of foreign destinations, developed international travel into a mass movement. New ocean liners shortened travelling time considerably, and travel by car and bus increased in many countries. Most of all, air travel became widely available, faster, safer, and cheaper. The beginning of the Jet Age in 1960, with larger aeroplanes carrying more than 100 passengers at speeds approximating 600 miles per hour, diminished the world by half in terms of time. Rising standards of living in the post-war period led to greater expenditure on tourism, thus making it more important to the national economy.