Victoria pushes ahead as Chinese visitor numbers continue to slide

Posted on April 11, 2019 by Pete Faulkner - QLD, Tourism, Uncategorized, VIC

Short term Arrivals and Departures data for Feb from the ABS show arrivals up 4.0% y/y (seasonally adjusted) or 3.0% (Trend). However, a steady decline in the Chinese visitor numbers seen over the past 8 months has Chinese visitor numbers up just 2.0% y/y (Trend), and down 6.5% y/y (seasonally adjusted).

The slow-down from China has seen the pace of growth of international arrivals ease slightly, although it remains strong. We are still awaiting the domestic tourism data from the National Visitor Survey for the Dec 2018 quarter which was originally due for release a few weeks ago; at this stage we have no indication from Tourism Research Australia of when that will now be released,

When we consider the State of Intended Stay data (presented as an original set by the ABS; we therefore create the Conus Trend) we see that Victoria continues to power ahead as the best performing state. Intended visitors to Victoria were up 7.7% y/y while those to QLD were unchanged. Tasmania continues to do well with an increase for the year of 5.3%.