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OCTOBER KEY FIGURES

		Oct 04	Sep 04 to Oct 04	Oct 03 to Oct 04
		'000	% change	% change
Short-term visitor arrivals
	Trend	437.7	0.2	2.8
	Seasonally adjusted	434.3	-0.2	. .
	Original	449.9	. .	. .
Short-term resident departures
	Trend	365.8	0.4	17.5
	Seasonally adjusted	371.6	0.6	. .
	Original	350.6	. .	. .
. . not applicable

Visitor arrivals, Short-term

Resident departures, Short-term

OCTOBER KEY POINTS


TREND ESTIMATES

• The trend estimate for short-term visitor arrivals to Australia during October 2004 (437,700 movements) increased by 0.2% compared with September 2004. This followed monthly increases of 0.4% for August and 0.3% for September 2004.
• Currently, short-term visitor arrivals are 3.0% higher than when the series last troughed in March 2004 (424,800 movements).
• During October 2004, short-term resident departures (365,800 movements) increased by 0.4% compared with the previous month and followed increases of 0.6% for both August and September 2004.
• Short-term resident departures have recorded steady growth over the past year, however, recent estimates indicate this growth rate is slowing. Compared with October 2003 (311,500 movements), short-term resident departures are up by 17.5%.

• The seasonally adjusted estimate for short-term visitor arrivals during October 2004 (434,300 movements) decreased by 0.2% compared with September 2004. This followed decreases of 0.2% for August and 0.3% for September 2004.
• Short-term resident departures for October 2004 (371,600 movements) increased by 0.6% compared with September 2004 and followed a decrease of 2.0% for August and an increase of 4.3% for September 2004.

• In original movement terms, there were 449,900 short-term visitor arrivals to Australia and 350,600 short-term resident departures from Australia during October 2004.

DATA NOTES

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 are based on unrounded data. See paragraph 12 of the Explanatory Notes for more detail.

FORTHCOMING CHANGES

From the November 2004 issue, to be released on 14 January 2005, this publication will no longer be released in printed form. It will be released as a Portable Document Format file (i.e. Adobe Acrobat .pdf format) on the ABS web site <https://www.abs.gov.au>: select Publications & Data and then Publications. The decision to change this release format has been made to make this monthly publication available at an earlier date.

INQUIRIES

For further information about these and related statistics, contact the National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070.

MAIN FEATURES


SHORT-TERM VISITOR ARRIVALS

The following table presents the top ten source countries (based on original estimates) for short-term visitor arrivals during October 2004. Seasonally adjusted and trend estimates are also presented for these countries, along with the trend percentage change compared with September 2004 and October 2003.

Short-term Visitor Arrivals, Major Source Countries - October 2004
	Trend	Seasonally Adjusted	Original	Sep 04 to Oct 04	Oct 03 to Oct 04
	'000	'000	'000	Trend % change	Trend % change
New Zealand	88.5	87.2	97.8	0.2	20.6
Japan	62.8	62.5	61.2	2.3	0.9
United Kingdom	56.2	56.1	59.7	-0.6	-2.9
United States of America	35.7	34.3	34.2	-1.5	0.8
China	20.9	(a)np	21.5	3.1	14.3
Singapore	20.7	21.9	19.6	1.0	-6.6
Korea	18.7	18.9	17.8	0.9	-2.0
Germany	12.0	11.8	15.7	0.9	0.4
Hong Kong	11.7	12.1	11.5	2.0	4.9
Malaysia	14.7	13.3	11.2	-0.7	-5.8
(a) Seasonally adjusted data for short-term visitor arrivals from China is of an unpublishable standard.

SHORT-TERM RESIDENT DEPARTURES

The following table presents the top ten destinations (based on original estimates), for short-term resident departures during October 2004. Seasonally adjusted and trend estimates are also presented for these countries, along with the trend percentage change compared with September 2004 and October 2003.

Short-term Resident Departures, Major Destinations - October 2004
	Trend	Seasonally Adjusted	Original	Sep 04 to Oct 04	Oct 03 to Oct 04
	'000	'000	'000	Trend % change	Trend % change
New Zealand	70.6	70.3	62.1	0.9	20.9
Indonesia	24.2	25.5	31.6	-2.8	(a)np
United States of America	30.3	29.5	30.5	-1.9	19.7
United Kingdom	30.4	31.0	26.2	-0.7	10.2
Thailand	15.7	16.8	20.5	1.9	7.7
China	16.5	16.5	19.9	1.8	38.9
Fiji	14.7	14.8	17.5	1.2	10.9
Singapore	13.1	13.3	13.7	0.6	4.2
Hong Kong	13.0	14.2	13.2	2.8	8.3
Malaysia	11.2	10.9	11.1	-0.2	5.2
(a) Not available for publication, due to break in the trend series from December 2003

TRAVEL BETWEEN NEW ZEALAND AND AUSTRALIA CONTINUES TO RISE

According to recent trend estimates, the number of short-term visitor arrivals from New Zealand has increased on a monthly basis since March 2003, although over the last two months the rate of increase has slowed. Currently, short-term visitor arrivals from New Zealand (88,500 movements for October 2004) are 36% higher than when the series last troughed in February 2003 (65,200 movements).

New Zealand

New Zealand

Statistics on overseas arrivals and departures 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 the 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 4,590 Australian residents departing permanently from Australia during October 2004, an increase of 19% when compared with October 2003 (3,850 movements).

STATISTICAL SIGNIFICANCE

The above presentation of movements in estimates does not take into account 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 on page 31 for more detail.

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED AND TREND ESTIMATES


INTRODUCTION

Seasonally adjusted and trend estimates add to the understanding of OAD statistics. Seasonally adjusted estimates allow users to analyse short-term irregular impacts on the series, while trend estimates provide a better method to analyse and monitor the underlying direction of OAD. In most cases, the trend series is the best source of information on the long-term direction of these statistics.

SHORT-TERM VISITOR ARRIVALS

Selected Source Countries

The graphs presented below illustrate the impact of the 2003 Rugby World Cup on arrivals from the United Kingdom in the later half of 2003, and the significant impact of SARS on arrivals from Japan.

United Kingdom

Japan

United States of America

United Kingdom