News continued to improve for Australia’s tourism industry yesterday, with the release of the overseas short-term arrivals and departures figures for September showing a second consecutive monthly lift in the number of inbound tourists and a big increase over the year.
Although the number of short-term visitor arrivals increased by only 0.8% in September (seasonally-adjusted), which was outeighed by a 1.6% increase in short-term resident departures, the ratio of annual arrivals to departures continues to improve ever so slightly after hitting 25-year lows in July 2012 (see below chart).
In the 12 months to September 2012, the annual number of arrivals increased by 9.4%% relative to the corresponding period of the prior year, whereas departures rose by only 5.4%.
And as suggested above, the slight improvement in the ratio of arrivals to departures has been caused predominantly by an increase in visitor arrivals into Australia:
The year to September 2012 was a record for both inbound and outbound tourism. A record 6.1 million inbound tourists arrived in Australia over the year – a 26% increase on a decade ago (4.7 million). However, the number of Australians holidaying overseas also hit a record 8.1 million departures – a 131% increase on 10 years ago (3.4 million).
South East Asia (particularly Indonesia and Thailand) remains Australia’s favourite holiday destination, receiving a record 217,500 visitors in September, or 31% of Australia’s total departures over the month. This was followed by Oceania (21%), the Americas (14%), North East Asia (11%) and North West Europe (10%):
While the bogan hotspots of Bali (Indonesia) and Thailand remain Australia’s favourite holiday destinations, Singapore has grown in popularity recently, with the number of departures there growing by 5,200 (21%) over the past year:
By contrast, the most foreign visitors to Australia came from NE Asia (mostly China), which accounted for 25% of arrivals in September 2012, and has recently overtaken Oceania (21%) as the leading source of inbound tourists:
Finally, the slight recent improvement in tourism numbers was also reflected in trade data released on Monday by the ABS, which revealed a third consecutive monthly increase in Australia’s tourism-related trade surplus to $193 million in September:
Twitter: Leith van Onselen. Leith is the Chief Economist of Macro Investor, Australia’s independent investment newsletter covering trades, stocks, property and yield. Click for a free 21 day trial.
