Strong visitor growth but the Chinese boom is certainly slowing

Posted on September 17, 2018 by Pete Faulkner - QLD, Tourism, Uncategorized

The short term arrivals and departures data for July show total arrivals into Australia were up 3.0% y/y (s.a.) or +5.4% annual to new record highs of almost 9.1 million for the 12 months to July.

While the growth of visitors from China continues (up 3.0% y/y and +9.6% annual Trend) this represents a significant slowing of that growth. The year-on-year and annual rates of growth are now at their slowest since early 2010.

When it comes to where visitors are going, the State of Intended Stay data (we Trend the original ABS data to create the Conus Trend series) shows that visitors to QLD are once again picking up (+6.1% annual) although the gap between the Sunshine State and Victoria (+7.3% annual) continues to widen.

Tasmania has been the stand-out performer recently and although the data remains strong here (+28.7% annual) it would appear that the recent surge may have eased somewhat in recent months.

The Tourism Research Australia International Visitor Survey is due for release later this week and that will provide us with more information about regional tourism performance.