8634.0 - Tourism Indicators, Australia, Dec 1998  
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 21/05/1999   
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MEDIA RELEASE

May 21, 1999
Embargoed: 11:30 AM (AEST)
58/99

Tourist accommodation up 6% to $1 billion - ABS

Tourist accommodation takings reached $1 billion for the first time during December quarter 1998, according to a publication released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. This was 6% up on the corresponding quarter in 1997.

Almost 100 additional accommodation establishments with 15 rooms or more were opened over the 12 months to December 1998. Most of these were located in Queensland (35) and New South Wales (33).

The publication, Tourism Indicators, Australia, also showed a fall in short term overseas visitors to Australia with 1.2 million visitors in the December quarter 1998, down 1% since the same time in 1997.

The fall was due to decreases in arrivals from several Asian markets, most notably Korea (down 56%), Indonesia (down 26%), Malaysia (down 20%), Singapore (down 12%) and Japan (down 10%).

However, the Asian decline was partly off-set by growth in other markets, principally, the United Kingdom (up 12%), the United States (up 18%) and New Zealand (up 4%).

The number of Australians taking short term trips overseas increased by 6% between the December quarters of 1997 and 1998. Almost half of these 842,600 travellers were holidaymakers.

The most popular destinations for Australians were New Zealand and Indonesia, which accounted for 16% and 12% of departures respectively.

More Australians were travelling to Southeast Asian destinations, including Thailand (up 51%), Malaysia (up 26%) and Singapore (up 22%). This was partly at the expense of traditional destinations, such as the United States (down 7%) and the United Kingdom (down 2%).

This issue of Tourism Indicators also contains a number of short feature articles on:
  • tourist accommodation developments;
  • employment in accommodation establishments;
  • the use of IT by the accommodation, cafes and restaurants industries; and,
  • a profile of Australian resident departures in 1998.


Further details are in Tourism Indicators, Australia, December Quarter 1998 (cat. no. 8634.0) available from ABS Bookshops.

Main features from the publication are available from this site.