NEW FIGURES SHOW INTERNATIONAL ARRIVALS TO AUSTRALIA STEADY

Latest tourism figures released show international visitor arrivals to Australia continue to grow strongly with an 8.7 per cent increase in visitor arrivals for the first two months of the year, Australian Tourist Commission Managing Director, John Morse said.

Speaking following the release of the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Overseas Arrivals and Departure February preliminary figures, Mr Morse said the Australian tourism industry was on track, despite a one per cent increase in visitor arrivals during February 2001.

“The figures show 438,700 inbound visitors in February 2001, an increase of one per cent compared to February 2000,” he said. “Today’s figures show a 14 per cent decline in visitor arrivals from Asia, which is a result of the change in timing of the Chinese New Year Holiday period.

“The Chinese New Year holiday period, which was in February last year, and January this year impacts on visitor arrivals from most Asian countries including Malaysia, Philippines and Singapore.

“Australia has proved to be a popular holiday destination during the Chinese New Year for the past couple of years and this explains the decline in visitor arrivals on either side of the holiday period.

“Despite the decline in visitors from Asia during February 2001, Australia is still on track to deliver the forecast 8.3 per cent growth in visitor arrivals for the year.”

Mr Morse said the figures showed that visitor arrivals from key tourism markets continued to grow during February.

“Australia’s traditional tourist markets continued to deliver record visitor arrivals in February 2001 including an additional 5,000 tourists from New Zealand (up by 12.7 per cent) and growth in visitors from the US (up by 4.8 per cent),” he said.

“The figures also show visitor arrivals from Europe continue to climb with 127,200 visitors during February 2001, up by 8.5 per cent compared to the February 2000. This includes increases in visitor arrivals from the United Kingdom (up 11 per cent), Germany ( up 16.3 per cent) and the Netherlands (up 6.6 per cent).

“Key emerging markets continued to show strong increases in visitor arrivals from including China (up 15.7 per cent); Korea (up 15.7 per cent) and Latin American (up 16.1 per cent).

“While visitor arrivals from Japan declined by six per cent during February 2001, the market is still on track delivering with a five per cent increase in visitor arrivals for the first two months of the year.”