Tourists continue to lie low

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The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has just released overseas short-term arrivals and departures figures for November, which are largely uneventful.

In seasonally adjusted terms, short-term visitor arrivals declined by -0.6%, offset by a corresponding -0.6% fall short-term resident departures.

Taking a longer-term view, however, the ratio of tourism arrivals to departures remains at a 25-year low, signalling an industry in distress:

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With the fall in the ratio of arrivals to departures caused predominantly by an exodus of Australians choosing to travel abroad rather than domestically:

To put these figures into context, at the beginning of last decade, Australia received around 7 overseas visitors per year for every 5 Australians holidaying abroad. But now this ratio is no longer in Australia’s favour, with just under 4 overseas visitors holidaying in Australia in the year to November 2011 for every 5 Australians visiting abroad.

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Australia’s favourite overseas holiday destination is South East Asia (particularly Indonesia and Thailand), which received nearly one-third of Australian departures in November 2011. This was followed by Oceania (23%), the Americas (12%), North East Asia (11%) and North West Europe (10%):

By contrast, the majority of foreign visitors to Australia are from Oceania (mostly New Zealand) and North Western Europe, which each accounted for 22% of arrivals in November 2011. This was followed by North East Asians (20%) and South East Asians (16%). Not much evidence of a China-led boom here:

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With the Australian dollar likely to remain elevated for the foreseeable future, expect Australia’s tourism industry to remain under pressure.

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About the author
Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness. Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.