SEPTEMBER KEY FIGURES

		Sep '16	Aug '16 to Sep '16	Sep '15 to Sep '16
		'000	% change	% change
Short-term visitor arrivals
	Trend	702.5	0.4	11.3
	Seasonally adjusted	709.7	2.6	..
	Original	647.2	..	..
Short-term resident departures
	Trend	826.7	-0.1	4.1
	Seasonally adjusted	822.6	-0.3	..
	Original	975.1	..	..
. . not applicable

Visitor arrivals, Short-term

Resident departures, Short-term

SEPTEMBER KEY POINTS
SHORT-TERM VISITOR ARRIVALS TO AUSTRALIA

• Trend estimates: Short-term visitor arrivals during September 2016 (702,500 movements) increased 0.4%, compared with August 2016 (699,800 movements). This followed monthly increases of 0.8% in July 2016 and 0.7% in August 2016. The current trend estimate for arrivals is 11.3% higher than in September 2015.
• Seasonally adjusted estimates: During September 2016, short-term visitor arrivals (709,700 movements) increased 2.6% compared with August 2016 (691,800 movements). This followed a monthly decreases of 0.2% in July 2016 and August 2016.
• Original estimates: There were 647,200 short-term visitor arrivals to Australia in September 2016.

SHORT-TERM RESIDENT DEPARTURES FROM AUSTRALIA

• Trend estimates: Short-term resident departures during September 2016 (826,700 movements) decreased 0.1%, compared with August 2016 (827,300 movements). This followed a monthly increase of 0.1% in July 2016 and 0.2% in August 2016. The current trend estimate for departures is 4.1% higher than in September 2015.
• Seasonally adjusted estimates: During September 2016, short-term resident departures (822,600 movements) decreased 0.3% compared with August 2016 (825,200 movements). This followed monthly decreases of 1.2% in July 2016 and 0.9% in August 2016.
• Original estimates: There were 975,100 short-term resident departures from Australia in September 2016.

NOTES


FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE	Release Date
October 2016	12 December 2016
November 2016	16 January 2017
December 2016	13 February 2017
January 2017 February 2017	14 March 2017 12 April 2017
March 2017	12 May 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 1 July 2016, Norfolk island was integrated into Australia for administrative purposes. Travel between mainland Australia and Norfolk Island is no longer considered an international movement and has been excluded from the Overseas Arrivals and Departures statistics.

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 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 have been working together to mitigate this issue and to minimise the impact on data quality.

For September 2016, the ABS added 168,212 records to account for missing outgoing passenger cards. The ABS also added 669 records to account for a higher level of missing incoming passenger cards. A total of 168,881 missing records were added to the overseas arrivals and departures data for September 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

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