3401.0 - Overseas Arrivals and Departures, Australia, 2004

ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 11/06/2004

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KEY FIGURES


		Mar 04	Apr 03
	Apr	to Apr	to Apr
	04	04	04
		%	%
	'000	change	change
Short-term visitor arrivals
Trend	419.4	-0.6	. .
Seasonally adjusted	420.2	-0.3	. .
Original	402.8	. .	25.3

Short-term resident departures
Trend	355.7	1.3	. .
Seasonally adjusted	363.9	4.4	. .
Original	353.6	. .	52.3

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 to Australia continued to decline with the trend estimate for April 2004 (419,400 movements) representing a decrease of 0.6% compared with March 2004. This followed decreases of 0.8% for February and 0.7% for March 2004.

Short-term resident departures continued to increase with the trend estimate for April 2004 (355,700 movements) representing an increase of 1.3% compared with March 2004 and followed increases of 1.7% for February and 1.5% for March 2004.

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED ESTIMATES

The seasonally adjusted estimate of short-term visitor arrivals for April 2004 (420,200 movements) decreased by 0.3% compared with the previous month and followed a decrease of 0.9% for February and an increase of 0.4% for March 2004.

Short-term resident departures for April 2004 (363,900 movements) increased by 4.4% compared with the previous month and followed a decrease of 1.9% for February and an increase of 3.4% for March 2004.

ORIGINAL ESTIMATES

In original terms there were 402,800 short-term visitor arrivals to Australia during April 2004, an increase of 25.3% compared with April 2003 (321,500 movements).

There were 353,600 short-term resident departures, an increase of 52.3% compared with April 2003 (232,100 movements).

These large increases reflect the significant impact that world events had on short-term travel to and from Australia during the first half of 2003. The ABS encourages the use of the trend series for time series analysis.

NOTES

EARLY ESTIMATES

Early estimates of short-term visitor arrivals for May 2004 will be available on the ABS website https://www.abs.gov.au on 15 June 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 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 or Chrissy Beruldsen on Canberra (02) 6252 5640 or c.beruldsen@abs.gov.au.

MAIN FEATURES

SHORT-TERM VISITOR ARRIVALS

According to trend estimates, short-term visitor arrivals for April 2004 declined by 0.6% compared with the previous month. This followed similar monthly decreases since January 2004, bringing the number of movements to a level 3% lower than when the series last peaked in November 2003 (432,200 movements).

The following table presents the top ten source countries, in original terms, for short-term visitor arrivals during April 2004, along with percentage and numeric change compared with April 2003.

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

	April	April	Numeric	Percentage
	2004	2003	change	change

	'000	'000	'000	%

New Zealand	88.3	68.5	19.8	28.8
Japan	55.6	43.6	12.0	27.6
United Kingdom	52.2	50.7	1.5	3.1
United States of America	30.9	27.4	3.5	12.6
China	17.7	9.5	8.2	86.6
Singapore	17.0	12.9	4.1	31.9
Korea	14.1	11.4	2.7	23.6
Hong Kong (SAR of China)	14.1	9.5	4.6	48.7
Malaysia	13.9	8.5	5.4	63.9
Thailand	13.0	7.7	5.3	68.1

SHORT-TERM RESIDENT DEPARTURES

According to trend estimates, short-term resident departures have recorded consecutive monthly growth rates since April 2003. However, estimates since January 2004 indicate that this growth rate is slowing. Currently, short-term resident departures are 25% higher than when the series last troughed in March 2003 (285,600 movements).

The following table presents the top ten source countries, in original terms, for short-term resident departures during April 2004, along with percentage and numeric change compared with April 2003.

SHORT-TERM RESIDENT DEPARTURES, Major Destinations-April 2004

	April	April	Numeric	Percentage
	2004	2003	change	change

	'000	'000	'000	%

New Zealand	74.3	56.7	17.6	31.0
United Kingdom	32.8	24.2	8.6	35.7
United States of America	31.9	22.4	9.5	42.3
Indonesia	24.7	11.4	13.3	117.3
Thailand	16.0	11.0	5.0	45.8
China	15.6	4.7	10.9	229.9
Singapore	12.6	3.9	8.7	223.4
Fiji	12.5	10.5	2.0	19.2
Hong Kong (SAR of China)	12.1	2.1	10.0	470.3
Malaysia	10.2	4.8	5.4	113.5

PERMANENT AND LONG-TERM MOVEMENTS

There were 9,440 permanent (settler) arrivals to Australia during April 2004, an increase of 15% compared with April 2003 (8,230 movements). Settlers born in the United Kingdom accounted for the largest proportion (16%) of permanent arrivals for April 2004, followed by the New Zealand (12%) and China (10%).

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 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 5,200 Australian residents departing permanently from Australia during April 2004, an increase of 25% compared with April 2003 (4,180 movements).

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.

TIME-SERIES ANALYSIS

Care should be taken when comparing estimates over time, particularly when using original estimates for time-series analysis. The original series is affected by such world events as the Bali bombing, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and the anticipation and commencement of military action in Iraq, which resulted in fewer than usual visitor arrivals and resident departures during the first half of 2003. The ABS encourages the use of the trend series for time series analysis as it reveals the underlying behaviour of the series without the influence of such events. See paragraphs 21 and 22 of the Explanatory Notes for more detail.