NOVEMBER KEY FIGURES

		Nov '16	Oct '16 to Nov '16	Nov '15 to Nov '16
		'000	% change	% change
Short-term visitor arrivals
	Trend	708.9	0.4	9.9
	Seasonally adjusted	704.9	-0.7	..
	Original	720.5	..	..
Short-term resident departures
	Trend	826.0	-0.3	2.4
	Seasonally adjusted	813.2	-3.5	..
	Original	734.5	..	..
. . 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 2016 (708,900 movements) increased 0.4%, compared with October 2016 (706,100 movements). This followed monthly increases of 0.6% in September 2016 and 0.5% in October 2016. The current trend estimate for arrivals is 9.9% higher than in November 2015.
• Seasonally adjusted estimates: During November 2016, short-term visitor arrivals (704,900 movements) decreased 0.7% compared with October 2016 (710,200 movements). This followed monthly increases of 2.4% in September 2016 and 0.2% in October 2016.
• Original estimates: There were 720,500 short-term visitor arrivals to Australia in November 2016.

SHORT-TERM RESIDENT DEPARTURES FROM AUSTRALIA

• Trend estimates: Short-term resident departures during November 2016 (826,000 movements) decreased 0.3%, compared with October 2016 (828,400 movements). This followed monthly decreases of just under 0.0% in September 2016 and 0.1% in October 2016. The current trend estimate for departures is 2.4% higher than in November 2015.
• Seasonally adjusted estimates: During November 2016, short-term resident departures (813,200 movements) decreased 3.5% compared with October 2016 (843,100 movements). This followed a monthly decrease of 0.6% in September 2016 and a monthly increase of 2.3% in October 2016.
• Original estimates: There were 734,500 short-term resident departures from Australia in November 2016.

NOTES


FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE	Release Date
December 2016	13 February 2017
January 2017	14 March 2017
February 2017	12 April 2017
March 2017	12 May 2017
April 2017	13 June 2017
May 2017	14 July 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

The Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP) has rolled out new technologies to streamline and strengthen border operations. Departure SmartGates are currently in use at all international airports in Australia for processing passengers leaving the country. 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 are working together to mitigate this issue and to minimise the impact on data quality.

For November 2016, the ABS added 192,726 records to account for missing outgoing passenger cards. The ABS also added 194 records to account for a higher level of missing incoming passenger cards. A total of 192,920 missing records were added to the overseas arrivals and departures data for November 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.