3401.0 - Overseas Arrivals and Departures, Australia, 2003

ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 12/12/2003

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KEY FIGURES


		Oct 03	Oct 02
	Oct	to Nov	to Oct
	03	03	03
		%	%
	'000	change	change
Short-term visitor arrivals
Trend	426.9	0.6	. .
Seasonally adjusted	426.1	-1.3	. .
Original	435.3	. .	1.5

Short-term resident departures
Trend	299.5	0.7	. .
Seasonally adjusted	302.3	0.2	. .
Original	277.9	. .	3.5

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 steadily with the trend estimate for October 2003 (426,900 movements) representing an increase of 0.6% compared to the previous month and followed an increase of 0.8% for August and 0.7% for September.

Short-term resident departures also continue to increase steadily. The trend estimate for October 2003 (299,500 movements) represents an increase of 0.7% from the previous month and followed an increase of 0.9% for August and September.

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED ESTIMATES

The seasonally adjusted estimate of short-term visitor arrivals for October 2003 (426,100 movements) decreased by 1.3% compared to September 2003. This monthly decrease may be attributable to the large number of visitors and participants arriving in September for the beginning of the 2003 Rugby World Cup.

Short-term departures of Australian residents for October 2003 (302,300 movements) increased by 0.2% compared to September 2003 and followed an increase of 3.2% for August and 3.3% for September.

ORIGINAL ESTIMATES

In original terms there were 435,300 short-term visitors to Australia in October 2003, an increase of 1.5% compared to October 2002 (428,900 movements).

There were 277,900 short-term departures of Australian residents, an increase of 3.5% compared to October 2002 (268,400 movements).

NOTES

PRELIMINARY DATA

Preliminary estimates of short-term visitor arrivals for November 2003 will be available on the ABS website http:\\www.abs.gov.au on 12 December 2003. 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 Arrivals to Australia, Preliminary (cat. no. 3401.0.55.001).

DATA NOTES

For data quality issues see appendix 2.

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.

CHANGES IN THIS ISSUE

Following a dissemination review for Overseas Arrival and Departure Statistics, a decision was made to cease special articles in this publication. These articles will be compiled on an irregular basis and will be made freely available on the ABS website. When an article is available, a notification will appear in this publication.

Trend estimates in this issue have been revised to take into account the impact of recent world events. See paragraphs 21 and 22 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.

MAIN FEATURES

RUGBY WORLD CUP 2003

In seasonally adjusted terms short-term visitor arrivals recorded the second highest monthly number of movements to date this year (426,100). September recorded the peak number of visitors (430,600), with an increase of 10% compared to August 2003. The increase of visitors over this period appears to be the result of Australia hosting the 2003 Rugby World Cup, with increases in arrivals from participating countries such as New Zealand, the United Kingdom, France and South Africa.

The Rugby World Cup is a one-off, non-seasonal event and hence its impact can be seen in the seasonally adjusted series. The trend series smoothes out such one-off events from the seasonally adjusted series, and reveals the underlying behaviour of the series without the influence of such events.

SHORT-TERM VISITOR ARRIVALS

In original terms, the top ten source countries for short-term visitor arrivals for October 2003 and the percentage and numeric change compared to October 2002 are presented in the table below.

SHORT-TERM VISITOR ARRIVALS, Major Source Countries-October 2003

	October	October	Numeric	Percentage
	2003	2002	change	change

	'000	'000	'000	%

New Zealand	83.0	78.8	4.3	5.4
United Kingdom	63.4	54.5	8.9	16.3
Japan	56.3	61.7	-5.4	-8.7
United States of America	32.5	37.4	-4.9	-13.1
Singapore	20.3	21.6	-1.2	-5.7
Korea	19.2	18.3	0.9	4.8
China	16.7	14.7	1.9	13.2
Germany	14.4	16.2	-1.8	-11.1
Malaysia	14.3	12.2	2.0	16.5
Hong Kong (SAR of China)	9.8	12.3	-2.5	-20.4

SHORT-TERM VISITOR DEPARTURES

There were 400,300 short-term visitor departures in October 2003. New South Wales, the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory experienced a decrease in overseas visitors, compared to October 2002, while all other states experienced an increase. Victoria experienced the largest numeric increase (9,700 movements or 16%) and South Australia experienced the largest percentage increase (22% or 1,600 movements).

SHORT-TERM RESIDENT DEPARTURES

In original terms, the top ten destinations of short-term resident departures for October 2003 and the percentage and numeric change compared to October 2002 are presented in the table below.

SHORT-TERM RESIDENT DEPARTURES, Major Destinations-October 2003

	October	October	Numeric	Percentage
	2003	2002	change	change

	'000	'000	'000	%

New Zealand	50.3	44.7	5.7	12.7
United States of America	22.6	23.2	-0.6	-2.5
United Kingdom	21.3	22.4	-1.1	-5.0
Indonesia	17.2	17.7	-0.6	-3.1
Fiji	15.4	13.0	2.4	18.4
China	14.3	13.5	0.7	5.4
Thailand	14.0	20.0	-6.0	-30.1
Singapore	12.9	10.5	2.4	23.0
Hong Kong (SAR of China)	11.3	9.5	1.7	18.1
Malaysia	10.1	9.5	0.6	6.8

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 on page 27 for more detail.

PERMANENT AND LONG-TERM MOVEMENTS

There were 8,100 permanent (settler) arrivals to Australia during October 2003, an increase of 19% (1,320 movements) compared to October 2002. Settlers born in the United Kingdom (20%) accounted for the largest proportion of permanent arrivals for October 2003. The second largest proportion of settlers were born in New Zealand (13%).

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 3,850 Australian residents departing permanently from Australia during Ocober 2003, an increase of 11% (390 movements) compared to October 2002.