MAY KEY FIGURES

		May '16	Apr '16 to May '16	May '15 to May '16
		'000	% change	% change
Short-term visitor arrivals
	Trend	677.0	0.7	10.9
	Seasonally adjusted	680.3	0.2	..
	Original	542.1	..	..
Short-term resident departures
	Trend	809.1	-0.1	3.4
	Seasonally adjusted	809.7	1.5	..
	Original	764.6	..	..
. . not applicable

Visitor arrivals, Short-term

Resident departures, Short-term

MAY KEY POINTS
SHORT-TERM VISITOR ARRIVALS TO AUSTRALIA

• Trend estimates: Short-term visitor arrivals during May 2016 (677,000 movements) increased 0.7%, compared with April 2016 (672,500 movements). This followed monthly increases of 0.8% in both March 2016 and April 2016. The current trend estimate for arrivals is 10.9% higher than in May 2015.
• Seasonally adjusted estimates: During May 2016, short-term visitor arrivals (680,300 movements) increased 0.2% compared with April 2016 (679,200 movements). This followed monthly increases of 4.5% in March 2016 and 1.3% in April 2016.
• Original estimates: There were 542,100 short-term visitor arrivals to Australia in May 2016.

SHORT-TERM RESIDENT DEPARTURES FROM AUSTRALIA

• Trend estimates: Short-term resident departures during May 2016 (809,100 movements) decreased 0.1%, compared with April 2016 (809,800 movements). This followed a monthly decrease of 0.1% in both March 2016 and April 2016. The current trend estimate for departures is 3.4% higher than in May 2015.
• Seasonally adjusted estimates: During May 2016, short-term resident departures (809,700 movements) increased 1.5% compared with April 2016 (798,100 movements). This followed a monthly increase of 3.7% in March 2016 and a monthly decrease of 3.5% in April 2016.
• Original estimates: There were 764,600 short-term resident departures from Australia in May 2016.

NOTES


FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE	Release Date
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
November 2016	16 January 2017

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 May 2016, the ABS added 141,945 records to account for missing outgoing passenger cards. The ABS also added 319 records to account for a higher level of missing incoming passenger cards. A total of 142,264 missing records were added to the overseas arrivals and departures data for May 2016. 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.

INQUIRIES

For further information about these and related statistics, contact the National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070. The ABS Privacy Policy outlines how the ABS will handle any personal information that you provide to the ABS.