MONTHLY figures released yesterday by the Australian Bureau of Statistics indicate a flattening in international travel, as measured by “short term resident returns” during Feb.
The arrival and departure figures showed a monthly decline of 0.1%, following no change between Nov and Dec, and a drop of 0.1% in Jan 2018.
Overall outbound travel is just 1.1% higher than in Feb 2017, with the trend estimate for growth flattening to levels not seen since 2008 during the Global Financial Crisis.
Year-on-year departures by Australian residents have dropped to New Zealand (-2.5%), Indonesia (-5.6%), the USA (-2.4%), China (-0.7%) and Singapore (-5%), while conversely there was strong growth in travel to Vietnam (+23%), India (+12.7%), and Japan (+13.1%).
Lower levels of outbound growth were seen for the UK (+3%) and Thailand (+5.9%).
In terms of arrivals, there was also little month-on-month growth during Feb, although visitation increased 4.8% overall when compared to Feb 2017.
China was Australia’s key source market during Feb 2018, with over 225,000 Chinese arrivals making it the biggest month ever for visitation from China.
That was almost three times the number that arrived from the UK, in second place at 85,700.
Australia’s fastest growing source of visitors during Feb was India, with 28,000 arrivals, up 19.3% compared to Feb 2017.
There was also growth from the USA, up 10.3%, while the Chinese market grew 6.8%.
Visitation to Australia declined from Malaysia, down 9.4%, and Singapore which dropped 5.2%.
Source: traveldaily