3401.0 - Overseas Arrivals and Departures, Australia, 2004  
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 16/03/2004   
   Page tools: Print Print Page Print all pages in this productPrint All

KEY FIGURES


Dec 03
Jan 03
Jan
to Jan
to Jan
04
04
04
%
%
'000
change
change
Short-term visitor arrivals

Trend
435.7
0.1
..
Seasonally adjusted
428.6
-2.3
..
Original
420.2
. .
5.9
Short-term resident departures
Trend
338.1
2.7
. .
Seasonally adjusted
342.0
1.0
. .
Original
299.7
. .
20.3




KEY POINTS

TREND ESTIMATES
  • Trend estimates in this issue take into account the impact of recent world events. See paragraphs 21 and 22 of the Explanatory Notes for more detail.
  • Short-term visitor arrivals continue to increase with the trend estimate for January 2004 (435,700 movements) representing an increase of 0.1% compared with December 2003 and follows an increase of 0.7% for November and 0.5% for December.
  • Short-term resident departures also continue to increase steadily. The trend estimate for January 2004 (338,100 movements) represents an increase of 2.7% from the previous month and follows an increase of 3.1% for November and 2.9% December.


SEASONALLY ADJUSTED ESTIMATES
  • The seasonally adjusted estimate of short-term visitor arrivals for January 2004 (428,600 movements) decreased by 2.3% compared with December 2003. This decline follows the strong growth in visitor arrival numbers recorded between September and December 2003, which can be largely attributed to Australia hosting the Rugby World Cup.
  • Short-term departures of Australian residents for January 2004 (342,000 movements) increased by 1% compared with December 2003 and follows an increase of 4.1% for November and 6.7% for December.


ORIGINAL ESTIMATES
  • In original terms there were 420,200 short-term visitors to Australia in January 2004, an increase of 5.9% compared with January 2003 (396,600 movements).
  • There were 299,700 short-term departures of Australian residents, an increase of 20.3% compared with January 2003 (249,100 movements).


NOTES


EARLY ESTIMATES

Early estimates of short-term visitor arrivals for February 2004 will be available on the ABS website https://www.abs.gov.au on 18 March 2004. These estimates can be accessed by going to the home page and selecting Main Features (located under Statistical Products and Services) and then 34. Migration. Select Short-term Visitor Arrival Estimates, Australia (cat. no. 3401.0.55.001).


DATA NOTES

For data quality issues see the appendix of this publication.

This publication contains movement data. Care should be taken when interpreting this movement data as 'people'. See paragraph 5 of the Explanatory Notes for more detail.

Calculations of percentage and numeric change as shown in the Key Points and/or Main Features of this publication are based on unrounded data. See paragraph 11 of Explanatory Notes for more detail.


ABBREVIATIONS

ABSAustralian Bureau of Statistics
ASCCSSAustralian Standard Classification of Countries for Social Statistics
DIMIADepartment of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs
OADOverseas Arrivals and Departures Collection
SARSpecial Administrative Region
TRIPSTravel and Immigration Processing System


INQUIRIES

For further information about these and related statistics, contact the National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070 or Chrissy Beruldsen on Canberra (02) 6252 5640.


MAIN FEATURES

SHORT-TERM VISITOR ARRIVALS

During January 2004, short-term visitor arrivals from Southeast and Northeast Asia increased by 7% (or 2,800 movements) and 11% (or 13,600 movements) respectively compared with January 2003. There were relatively large increases in visitor arrivals from China (up 50% or 10,400 movements), Malaysia (up 30% or 2,500 movements) and Hong Kong (up 14% or 1,600 movements). These increases may be associated with Chinese New Year celebrations which officially began on 22 January 2004. In 2003, the Chinese New Year was celebrated at the start of February.

The top ten source countries for short-term visitor arrivals for January 2004 and the percentage and numeric change compared with January 2003 are presented in the table below.

SHORT-TERM VISITOR ARRIVALS, Major Source Countries-January 2004

January
January
Numeric
Percentage
2004
2003
change
change
'000
'000
'000
%

United Kingdom
62.0
63.6
-1.6
-2.5
Japan
58.8
57.4
1.4
2.5
New Zealand
53.6
47.0
6.6
14.0
United States of America
34.1
35.2
-1.1
-3.2
China
31.2
20.8
10.4
49.7
Korea
25.9
26.0
-0.1
-0.5
Singapore
15.2
15.3
-0.2
Hong Kong (SAR of China)
13.0
11.4
1.6
14.1
Germany
12.1
11.7
0.4
3.4
Malaysia
10.8
8.3
2.5
30.4



SHORT-TERM RESIDENT DEPARTURES

In original terms, the number of short-term resident departures during January 2004 increased by 20% compared with January 2003. November and December 2003 also recorded large increases compared with the corresponding periods in 2002 (up 14% and 15% respectively). These large increases may reflect the impact that the Bali bombing (12 October 2002) had on short-term resident departures in the months following the attack, as well as the increasing affordability of international travel in recent months as a result of the strong rise of the Australian dollar compared to US currency.

The trend series smoothes out the impact of such one-off, non-seasonal events, and reveals the underlying behaviour of the series without the influence of such events. According to trend estimates, the number of short-term resident departures has continued to record steady monthly increases since April 2003, however this growth has not been as rapid as that suggested by the original series.

Following the relatively large increases in short-term resident departures to Indonesia observed in recent months, the ABS will be reviewing February 2004 data and considering a revision to the break in the trend series introduced after the October 2002 Bali bombing. Please see paragraph 22 of the Explanatory Notes for more detail.

The top ten destinations of short-term resident departures for January 2004 and the percentage and numeric change compared with January 2003 are presented in the table below.

SHORT-TERM RESIDENT DEPARTURES, Major Destinations-January 2004

January
January
Numeric
Percentage
2004
2003
change
change
'000
'000
'000
%

New Zealand
63.7
49.3
14.4
29.3
United States of America
27.7
22.3
5.4
24.1
Indonesia
24.2
10.0
14.1
141.2
United Kingdom
19.7
19.1
0.5
2.7
Thailand
12.8
10.7
2.2
20.3
Viet Nam
12.6
11.4
1.2
10.7
Singapore
12.2
12.1
0.3
Malaysia
12.0
10.1
1.9
18.8
Fiji
11.7
10.2
1.5
14.6
China
11.6
10.1
1.5
15.0



STATISTICAL SIGNIFICANCE

The above presentation of movements in estimates does not consider whether the change in movement is statistically significant. Care should be taken when interpreting the impact of numeric and/or percentage change. Please see the Standard Errors section under Quality Measures.


PERMANENT AND LONG-TERM MOVEMENTS

There were 9,650 permanent (settler) arrivals to Australia during January 2004, an increase of 23% compared with January 2003 (7,870 movements). Settlers born in New Zealand (19%) accounted for the largest proportion of permanent arrivals for January 2004. The second largest proportion of settlers were born in the United Kingdom (18%).

Statistics on OAD relate to the number of movements of travellers rather than the number of travellers. Therefore, care should be taken when using long-term arrivals data as it is known some individuals who travel multiple times in a year are counted each time they cross Australia's borders (see paragraph 5 of Explanatory Notes). Long-term arrivals in this publication are not an appropriate source of migration statistics. For further information refer to Australian Demographic Statistics (cat. no. 3101.0).

There were 7,910 Australian residents departing permanently from Australia during January 2004, an increase of 16% compared with January 2003 (6,840 movements).