6 Million Visitors a Year at Last
Australian visitor arrivals have reached 6 million a year for the first time representing a 3.5% over the same period last year, according to the latest Overseas Arrivals and Departures figures released this week by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
China has eclipsed Britain as Australia’s second biggest market behind New Zealand. Arrivals from China continue to grow at record levels, up 16.6% in August to almost 427,000 for the calendar year to date. But arrivals from Australia’s biggest source market New Zealand fell for the second month in a row, down more than 3%.
Singapore, our sixth largest market, increased 28.7% to be up 5.1% in 2012. Arrivals from Hong Kong increased 18.3% while Japan, recovering from last year’s tsunami, was up 6.0% for the month and 7.1% for the year. North East Asia was up 10.3% for the month and 9.2% so far in 2012. India increased 15.1% for the month continuing the upward trend from the last release.
Growth in arrivals from Northern America continues with arrivals from Canada increasing 1.5% in August to be up 2.4% for the year; arrivals from the United States increased 5.6% for the month, to be up 3.0% to 308,000 arrivals, so far this year.
Visitors from Europe continue on a downward trend. Arrivals from the United Kingdom decreased 2.4% in August to be down 4.2% for the year while arrivals from Germany fell 2.7% for the month to be down 2.4% in 2012. Despite the trend decline, Ireland is 13.3% up for the year.
Growth in Australians heading overseas continues to soften, up 2.8% in August and 5.5% so far in 2012. But more than eight million Australians still travelled overseas in the past year, up from 7.6 million the year before. New Zealand is still the most popular destination, with more than one million Australians heading there over the past year.
The ABS said 161,700 overseas tourists spent most of their time in Queensland in August, a 4.5% rise on the same time last year. Just more than one million tourists have come to Queensland so far this year, a 3.4% rise.
Minister for tourism, Martin Ferguson said the figures showed that investment to attract tourism from Asia is working.
“We have allocated $48.5 million to the Asia Marketing Fund to help ensure Australia is the destination of choice and these figures show that this money is well spent,” Mr Ferguson said. “In addition Tourism Australia’s There’s Nothing Like Australia campaign has been launched in 25 countries in 17 languages and the campaign film downloaded over 20 million times since its first release.”
Tourism and Transport Forum chief executive John Lee said, “For the year to date, international arrivals are up 3.4%, underpinned by double-digit growth from China, Taiwan and Ireland. Among our traditional markets, the US (+2.9%) and Japan (+7.1%) are also stronger despite the challenges those countries are facing. This is a clear demonstration the world likes what Australia has to offer and they are responding positively to efforts to entice them to visit.”
Mr Lee blamed the airport tax rise for the drop in arrivals from New Zealand. He said, “Charging our biggest inbound market the highest short-haul departure tax of any developed country in the world does not help to improve our competitiveness or encourage greater tourist expenditure in the visitor economy.”
However simply increasing the number of visitor arrivals may not be the answer.
Convener of the Global Eco Asia Pacific ecotourism conference in Cairns next week, Tony Charters, says Australian industry leaders are too focused on increasing visitor numbers and should instead focus on niche markets. Mr Charters says Australia can’t compete on price with booming tourism destinations such as Bali and Thailand and should focus on promoting Australian holidays as unique.
Kym Cheatham, chief executive of Ecotourism Australia agrees that Australia should focus on developing a more profitable tourism industry based on high-value visitors rather than “an endless pursuit for growth in visitor numbers”.
“It is time to reinvent Australian tourism, rather than rehash the reasons for the protracted downturn we are stuck in,” said Ms Cheatham. “The endless pursuit of growth in numbers is a hollow ambition, with mass tourism bringing profitless volume.”
Ms Cheatham said high quality experiences founded on financially viable, environmentally sustainable and culturally responsible tourism products offered an alternative course.
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