Short term arrivals and departures looks like good news for QLD

Posted on July 16, 2018 by Pete Faulkner - QLD, Tourism, Uncategorized

Today saw the release of the ABS short term arrivals and departures data for May. It shows arrivals up 4.4% from a year ago while the running annual total is now 5.8% higher than a year ago. This is, however, the slowest pace of annual growth since May 2015. Chinese visitors continue to lead the charge, up 11.5% from a year ago with the annual total now up 12.8%.

We will finally get the (delayed) International Visitor Survey details for the March quarter on Thursday and this will provide us with a great deal more information about these international visitors.

In the meantime the ABS State of Intended Stay data (and the Conus Trend derived from the original data) suggests that Queensland’s relative recovery may still be intact; although the impact of the Commonwealth Games in the Gold Coast does appear to be washing-out of this data (as expected) with QLD recording a 6.5% y/y growth versus 4.7% for the nation as a whole. Of the three largest states NSW sees the worst result (up just 1.1%) while Victoria was up 7.6%.

If we consider the running annual Trend totals the outstanding performers (coming of a relatively low bases) continue to be Tasmania (up 31.9%) and ACT (up 31.6%).