Slowing Chinese visitor growth sees short term visitor expansion at 7-year low

Posted on January 16, 2020 by Pete Faulkner - QLD, Tourism, Uncategorized, VIC

The ABS release of short term visitor data today for Nov 2019 shows that, as the number of visitors from China slows (or goes into decline) we are seeing total short term visitors numbers over the past 12 months slow to a rate not seen sice August 2012.

Seasonally adjusted data shows visitor numbers up 2.2% from a year ago. The total number over the past 12 months is up just 2.8%; the slowest pace of growth since August 2012.

Chinese visitors fell 1.9% y/y and are up just 1.5% annually (seasonaly adjusted) or just 0.8% up on a Trend basis. This dramatic slowdown in the number of Chinese visitors means that NZ is within touching distance of becoming our largest international market once again (a crown it lost to China back in May 2017). In November NZ trailled China by just 1,000.

When we consider the ABS State of Intended Stay data, through the lens of the Conus Trend, we see a continuation of the excellent performance of the Victorian market while both NSW and QLD lag sadly behind. With annual growth across the nation at 2.8% Victoria managed to grow 6.2% while Queensland registered an increase of 1.4% and NSW just 0.6%.

Obviously this data relates to a period prior to the impact of the worst of the bushfire season, which we should start to see reflected in monthly ABS data for December onwards and in the Tourism Australia quarterly International Visitor Survey for the first quarter of this year (probably due for release in June).