Domestic tourism trends vary throughout the region, even within countries. While the sector is vital to the Australian and New Zealand tourism industry, it is less developed in the rest of Oceania.

Due to the vast size of the continent and the variety of resources, Australia’s domestic tourism accounts for a significant portion of the tourism sector with the majority (63%) of Australians staying within their state (TRA, 2013). Though the number of visitors fluctuates, expenditure keeps rising – with overnight visitors spending $51.7 billion (TRA, 2013). Domestic travel spending in New Zealand created 63.9% of direct Travel and Tourism GDP in 2012 (WTTC, 2013). For both countries domestic tourism contributes more to the economy than international tourism (Cooper and Hall, 2005:20,102).

Most popular reason for domestic travel in the region is holiday; however visiting friends and family, and business travel also prove significant (Page and Hall, 2005).

In contrast, there is little demand for domestic tourism in Micronesia, Melanesia and Polynesia, thus they are highly reliant on international receipts (Boniface and Cooper, 2009:528). The WTTC (2013:6) published Other Oceania’s domestic spending as 12.2% of Tourism’s contribution to the GDP. They do not provide, however, visitor numbers. This can be attributed to the countries’ capricious statistics collection alongside the low development of tourism and sophistication in the microstates.

With this being said, the domestic spending difference between key Oceanic countries and Other Oceania is visible, which supports, to some extent, Boniface and Cooper’s (2013) view that there is little demand for domestic travel in the Pacific.