The good news for the tourism industry continues. The ABS Short Term Arrivals and Departures data for July shows arrivals up 14% y/y (the best result since May ’14) and up 10.3% annually (the sum of the past 12 months) which is the best result for more than eleven years. Short term arrivals over the past 12 months now exceed 7.9 million; also a new record.
As we are all aware much of this growth has come from the Chinese market. Arrivals in July were up 23.5% from a year ago while total arrivals over the past 12 months increased by 24.1%. Over the course of the past year arrivals from China accounted for 14.8% of all arrivals into the country (another new record).
But it’s not all been China. Arrivals from the US over the past year are up 14.6% while the Japanese market has also seen good recovery, up 18.2% over the course of the past 12 months.
Departures are also growing, although at a much slower pace. Departures in July were 6.6% higher than a year ago while over the course of the past year departures are up just 4.6% and now sit a just over 9.7 million.
The increases being seen in both the Chinese and Japanese markets certainly bode well for the International Visitor data for the TNQ region for the third quarter (due for release at the end of November). Domestic Visitor data for the June quarter will be released by Tourism Research Australia next Wednesday.