Arrivals data onwards and upwards even as China slows

Posted on September 11, 2019 by Pete Faulkner - NSW, QLD, TNQ, Tourism, Uncategorized, VIC

Short term arrivals data for July shows a 3.3% y/y increase (Trend) to a new record high just shy of 800,000. This despite the fact that arrivals from China (still the largest single market) have slowed dramatically and are up just 1.0% y/y. Even this modest rise takes Chinese arrivals to a new record high of 123,000. The Trend series would show a 3.7% y/y increase if we excluded China from the data. This slowing in growth of Chinese visitors is likely to be reflected in the International Visitor Survey data for regions where they are of particular significance (which includes Cairns and TNQ) when we see the June quarter results sometime in October. Chinese visitors to TNQ were down almost 7% in the year to March and this latest data does little to suggest that picture has turned around since then (see here for full details of the March result).

The State of Intended Stay data (when the original, unadjusted data is seen through the lens of the Conus Trend) shows total Australian visitations up 2.7% y/y. NSW (+1.3%) and Queensland (+1.4%) were the worst of the major states while Victoria continues to power ahead up 5.3%. When we sum for the past 12 months Australia saw an annual increase of 2.9% while NSW languisehed at 0.9%, Queensland slightly better at 2.2% and Victoria up a mighty 7.7%.