As the mining and construction sectors continue to boom, spare a thought for Australia’s tourism sector, which is being badly affected by the high Australian dollar.
Monday’s release of the overseas short-term tourist arrivals and departures figures for October showed that the ratio of tourism arrivals to departures has hit a 25-year low:
With the fall in the ratio of arrivals to departures caused predominantly by an exodus of Australians choosing to travel abroad rather than domestically:
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 October 2011 for every 5 Australians visiting abroad.
Not surprisingly, Australia’s favourite overseas holiday destination is South East Asia (particularly Indonesia and Thailand), which received nearly one-third of Australian departures in April 2011. This was followed by Oceania (23%), the Americas (13%), North East Asia (11%) and North West Europe (10%):
By contrast, the majority of foreign visitors to Australia are from Oceania (mostly New Zealand), which accounted for 23% of arrivals in October 2011. This was followed by North East Asians (23%), North Western Europeans (18%) and South East Asians (15%). Not much evidence of a China-led boom here:
With so many Australians holidaying overseas, and foreigners dissuaded from visiting Australia due to the high currency, there is little wonder that real spending on accommodation and food services remains below the 2007 peak (despite higher population):
With tourism-dependent Queensland appearing particularly hard hit:
With the Australian Treasury predicting that the Australian dollar will remain at persistently high levels for some time as it tracks high commodity prices and the country’s strong terms of trade, the pain caused by the tourism deficit is likely to be ongoing.
