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Singapore, China and Italy are the main winners among destinations favoured by Australian travellers in new figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) – which also show the continuing dominance of New Zealand and Bali as destinations.

The ABS has published trend estimates for short-term resident returns (a means of working out where Australians have been and where others are likely to head) for August 2017 and August 2018.

Year-on-year comparisons for August show the highest percentage increases were recorded for Singapore (13.5%), followed by China (13.4%) and Italy (9.5%). The highest percentage decrease was recorded for Thailand (-2.5%).

In trend terms, short-term resident returns to Australia during August 2018 (934,300 movements) increased 0.3% when compared with July 2018 (931,600 movements). In August 2018, short-term resident returns were 6% higher than in August 2017, showing outbound travel is looking healthy.

The short-term resident return figures for August 2018 show New Zealand had 121,200 visitors in seasonally adjusted trend terms and Indonesia (predominantly Bali) had 105,300. After those two, the runners up are the US (85,000), Britain (72,800) and Thailand (49,900).

On the inbound side:

In trend terms, short-term visitor arrivals to Australia during August 2018 (783,300 movements) increased 0.7% when compared with July 2018 (777,800 movements). In August 2018, short-term visitor arrivals were 4.8% higher than in August 2017.

Singapore favoured by Aussies

When trend estimates for short-term visitor arrivals for August 2017 and August 2018 are compared, the highest percentage increases are for India (16.5%), followed by Hong Kong (11.8%) and Japan (7.5%). The highest percentage decrease was recorded for the US (-4.0%).

  • There were 741,700 visitor arrivals during the month of August, up 5.5 per cent relative to the same period of the previous year.
  • There were 9.1 million visitor arrivals for year ending August 2018, an increase of 5.5 per cent relative to the previous year.

Written by Peter Needham