JUNE KEY FIGURES

		Jun '18	May '18 to Jun '18	Jun '17 to Jun '18
		'000	% change	% change
Short-term visitor arrivals
	Trend	765.0	0.2	3.1
	Seasonally adjusted	765.9	0.3	..
	Original	646.7	..	..
Short-term resident returns
	Trend	930.6	0.6	5.7
	Seasonally adjusted	918.6	-1.9	..
	Original	808.7	..	..
.. not applicable

Visitor arrivals, Short-term

Resident returns, Short-term

JUNE KEY POINTS

SHORT-TERM VISITOR ARRIVALS TO AUSTRALIA

• Trend estimates: Short-term visitor arrivals during June 2018 (765,000 movements) increased 0.2% when compared with May 2018 (763,200 movements). This followed monthly increases of 0.3% for April and 0.2% for May 2018. The current trend estimate for arrivals is 3.1% higher than in June 2017.
• Seasonally adjusted estimates: During June 2018, short-term visitor arrivals (765,900 movements) increased 0.3% when compared with May 2018 (763,700 movements). This followed a monthly decrease of 2.0% in April 2018 and a monthly increase of 1.1% in May 2018.
• Original estimates: There were 646,700 short-term visitor arrivals to Australia in June 2018.

SHORT-TERM RESIDENT RETURNS TO AUSTRALIA

• Trend estimates: Short-term resident returns during June 2018 (930,600 movements) increased 0.6% when compared with May 2018 (924,700 movements). This followed monthly increases of 1.0% for April 2018 and 0.8% for May 2018. The current trend estimate for returns is 5.7% higher than in June 2017.
• Seasonally adjusted estimates: During June 2018, short-term resident returns (918,600 movements) decreased 1.9% when compared with May 2018 (936,400 movements). This followed monthly increases of 1.4% in April 2018 and 1.2% in May 2018.
• Original estimates: There were 808,700 short-term resident returns to Australia in June 2018.

NOTES


FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE	Release Date
July 2018	17 September 2018
August 2018	17 October 2018
September 2018	19 November 2018
October 2018	17 December 2018
November 2018	18 January 2019
December 2018	19 February 2019
January 2019	15 March 2019
February 2019	11 April 2019
March 2019	13 May 2019
April 2019	12 June 2019
May 2019	12 July 2019
June 2019	15 August 2019

REVISIONS IN THIS ISSUE

Investigations by the ABS and the Department of Home Affairs identified quality issues with the capture and coding of state or territory of stay/residence from incoming passenger cards from March 2018 onwards. A resolution to these issues was implemented and data re-processed. Revised OAD data from March to May 2018 has been released in the June 2018 issue. All time series spreadsheets and data files have been revised.

For further information about the revisions, see the end of the Data Quality Issues (Appendix) on the left hand side under the Explanatory Notes tab.


DATA NOTES

In July 2017, the Australian Government Department of Home Affairs introduced changes to the incoming passenger card. The change was to capture the main reason for journey for both residents returning, and visitors arriving in Australia. The ABS has noted changes in the distribution of responses to the question on main reason for journey for short-term visitor arrivals in recent months, notably an increase in the number of persons reporting that the main reason for travel was visiting friends and relatives and a decline in the number of persons reporting the main reason was a holiday. The ABS is investigating possible explanations for these changes.

In June 2018, the ABS identified a data quality issue with the country of residence of Bangladesh being high for short-term visitor movements. There was a corresponding decrease for Singapore and Malaysia. This is being investigated further by Home Affairs in collaboration with the ABS. Until the issue is resolved, users should exercise caution when analysing recent statistics for country of residence of Bangladesh, Singapore and Malaysia for short-term visitor arrivals and short-term visitor departures. Adjustments have been applied to the seasonally adjusted and trend series for short-term visitor arrivals for Bangladesh.


This release contains overseas movement data which should not be interpreted as 'persons'. See paragraph 7 of the Explanatory Notes for more detail.

The statistics in this release have been rounded. See paragraph 33 of the Explanatory Notes for more detail.


INQUIRIES

For further information about these and related statistics, contact the National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070. The ABS Privacy Policy outlines how the ABS will handle any personal information that you provide to the ABS.