News continues to improve incrementally for Australia’s tourism industry, with the release of the overseas short-term arrivals and departures figures for December showing a fifth consecutive monthly lift in the number of inbound tourists and a solid rise over the year.
The number of inbound tourists rose by a seasonally-adjusted 1.6% in December and was up 8.3% over the year. By comparison, short-term resident departures rose by only 0.1% in the month of December and by 6.3% over the year. As a result, the ratio of annual arrivals to departures fell by -0.1% to 75.2% in December and remained above the 25-year lows of 74.8% hit in July 2012 (see below chart).
A chart plotting the monthly short-term arrivals and departures is presented below. Note the strong growth in departures (and the stagnation in arrivals) since 2003, when the Aussie dollar began to rise in response to the commodity boom.
The year to December 2012 was a record for both inbound and outbound tourism. A record 6.15 million inbound tourists arrived in Australia over the year – a 29% increase on a decade ago (4.7 million). However, the number of Australians holidaying overseas also hit a record 8.18 million departures – a 137% increase on 10 years ago (3.4 million).
South East Asia (particularly Indonesia and Thailand) remains Australia’s favourite holiday destination, receiving a record 211,600 visitors in December, or 30% of Australia’s total departures over the month. This was followed by Oceania (21%), the Americas (13%), North West Europe (12%) and North East Asia (11%):
The bogan hotspots of Bali (Indonesia) and Thailand remain Australia’s favourite holiday destinations, although departures to both destinations fell by -4% in December. Singapore is also emerging as a new bogan hotspot, with departures there increasing by 15% over the past year, although they fell by -7% in December (see next chart).
Finally, the most foreign visitors to Australia came from NE Asia (mostly China), which accounted for 24% of arrivals in December 2012, and recently overtook Oceania (21%) as the leading source of inbound tourists:
