APRIL KEY FIGURES

		Apr '16	Mar '16 to Apr '16	Apr '15 to Apr '16
		'000	% change	% change
Short-term visitor arrivals
	Trend	670.4	0.7	10.2
	Seasonally adjusted	678.4	1.2	. .
	Original	610.8	. .	. .
Short-term resident departures
	Trend	811.1	-0.2	3.8
	Seasonally adjusted	799.5	-3.4	. .
	Original	791.4	. .	. .
. . not applicable

Visitor arrivals, Short-term

Resident departures, Short-term

APRIL KEY POINTS
SHORT-TERM VISITOR ARRIVALS TO AUSTRALIA

• Trend estimates: Short-term visitor arrivals during April 2016 (670,400 movements) increased 0.7%, compared with March 2016 (665,600 movements). This followed monthly increases of 0.7% in both February 2016 and March 2016. The current trend estimate for arrivals is 10.2% higher than in April 2015.
• Seasonally adjusted estimates: During April 2016, short-term visitor arrivals (678,400 movements) increased 1.2% compared with March 2016 (670,500 movements). This followed a monthly decrease of 2.7% in February 2016 and a monthly increase of 4.4% in March 2016.
• Original estimates: There were 610,800 short-term visitor arrivals to Australia in April 2016.

SHORT-TERM RESIDENT DEPARTURES FROM AUSTRALIA

• Trend estimates: Short-term resident departures during April 2016 (811,100 movements) decreased 0.2%, compared with March 2016 (812,900 movements). This followed a monthly increase of 0.1% in February 2016 and little change in March 2016. The current trend estimate for departures is 3.8% higher than in April 2015.
• Seasonally adjusted estimates: During April 2016, short-term resident departures (799,500 movements) decreased 3.4% compared with March 2016 (827,900 movements). This followed a monthly decrease of 3.0% in February 2016 and a monthly increase of 3.7% in March 2016.
• Original estimates: There were 791,400 short-term resident departures from Australia in April 2016.

NOTES


FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE	Release Date
May 2016	6 July 2016
June 2016	4 August 2016
July 2016	9 September 2016
August 2016	10 October 2016
September 2016	10 November 2016
October 2016	12 December 2016

DATA NOTES

This release contains overseas movement data which should not be interpreted as 'persons'. See paragraph 7 of the Explanatory Notes for more detail.

The statistics in this release have been rounded. See paragraph 34 of the Explanatory Notes for more detail.

CHANGES IN THIS ISSUE

From August 2015 onwards, the Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP) has progressively rolled out new technologies to streamline and strengthen border operations. Departure SmartGates are currently in use at Kingsford Smith (Sydney), Eagle Farm (Brisbane), Tullamarine (Melbourne) and Darwin airport for processing passengers leaving Australia. Passengers using Departure SmartGates are required to place their outgoing passenger card in drop boxes located near the Departure SmartGate rather than handing them to Australian Border Force officers.

Coinciding with the roll-out of Departure SmartGates, there has been an increase in outgoing passenger cards not being collected due to passengers failing to place their cards into the drop boxes. The ABS and DIBP have been working together to mitigate this issue and to minimise the impact on data quality.

For April 2016, the ABS added 142,570 records to account for missing outgoing passenger cards. The ABS also added 656 records to account for a higher level of missing incoming passenger cards. A total of 143,226 missing records were added to the overseas arrivals and departures data for April. For further information see Section 7 of the Data Quality Issues (Appendix 2) in the left hand side navigation bar under the Explanatory Notes tab.

REVISIONS

Biennial Seasonal Adjustment Reanalysis
The seasonally adjusted and trend series have been updated following the review of the seasonal adjustment process. This review confirms the extent to which movements are affected by seasonal or irregular influences. As a result, the seasonally adjusted and trend estimates of a number of series have been revised. See paragraph 28 of the Explanatory Notes for more detail.

Unreliable seasonal adjustment: In using the seasonally adjusted series, care should be exercised because of the difficulties associated with reliably estimating the seasonal pattern for the following short-term resident departure series: Other North-East Asia and United Arab Emirates. These series will be revised during the next biennial seasonal adjustment reanalyses.

INQUIRIES

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