NOVEMBER KEY FIGURES

		Nov '15	Oct '15 to Nov '15	Nov '14 to Nov '15
		'000	% change	% change
Short-term visitor arrivals
	Trend	640.3	0.8	9.7
	Seasonally adjusted	642.8	1.8	. .
	Original	668.9	. .	. .
Short-term resident departures
	Trend	799.8	0.5	4.9
	Seasonally adjusted	784.6	-2.8	. .
	Original	703.0	. .	. .
. . not applicable

Visitor arrivals, Short-term

Resident departures, Short-term

NOVEMBER KEY POINTS
SHORT-TERM VISITOR ARRIVALS TO AUSTRALIA

• Trend estimates: Short-term visitor arrivals during November 2015 (640,300 movements) increased 0.8%, compared with October 2015 (634,900 movements). This followed monthly increases of 1.1% in September 2015 and 1.0% in October 2015. The current trend estimate for arrivals is 9.7% higher than in November 2014.
• Seasonally adjusted estimates: During November 2015, short-term visitor arrivals (642,800 movements) increased 1.8% compared with October 2015 (631,600 movements). This followed a monthly increase of 2.7% in September 2015 and a monthly decrease of 1.1% in October 2015.
• Original estimates: There were 668,900 short-term visitor arrivals to Australia in November 2015.

SHORT-TERM RESIDENT DEPARTURES FROM AUSTRALIA

• Trend estimates: Short-term resident departures during November 2015 (799,800 movements) increased 0.5%, compared with October 2015 (795,600 movements). This followed monthly increases of 0.6% in both September 2015 and October 2015. The current trend estimate for departures is 4.9% higher than in November 2014.
• Seasonally adjusted estimates: During November 2015, short-term resident departures (784,600 movements) decreased 2.8% compared with October 2015 (807,600 movements). This followed a monthly decrease of 0.8% in September 2015 and a monthly increase of 3.8% in October 2015.
• Original estimates: There were 703,000 short-term resident departures from Australia in November 2015.

NOTES


FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE	Release Date
December 2015	12 February 2016
January 2016	7 March 2016
February 2016	7 April 2016
March 2016	6 May 2016
April 2016	3 June 2016
May 2016	6 July 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 35 of the Explanatory Notes for more detail.

CHANGES IN THIS ISSUE

The Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP) has recently commenced a transition to the Departures SmartGate system for processing passengers leaving Australia. SmartGates were progressively rolled out at Kingsford Smith (Sydney) Airport from June 2015 and at Eagle Farm (Brisbane) Airport from November 2015.

To maintain quality for November 2015, using additional data provided by DIBP from its Travel and Immigration Processing System (TRIPS), the ABS added 65,490 records to account for outgoing passenger cards missing from Kingsford Smith Airport and Eagle Farm Airport. In addition, the ABS added 3,264 records to account for incoming passenger cards missing as a result of a workplace strike by staff from the Department of Immigration and Border Protection on 9 November. A total of 68,754 missing records were added to the overseas arrivals and departures data for November. Variables within these records that remained missing, due to the passenger card information not being available, were imputed. For further information, see the Data Quality Issues (Appendix 2) in the left hand side navigation bar under the Explanatory Notes tab.

CHANGES TO THE DECEMBER 2015 ISSUE

Please note the regular calendar year Feature Article will not be published in the December 2015 issue of Overseas Arrivals and Departures due to the issues noted above in the Changes in this Issue.

INQUIRIES

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