MARCH KEY FIGURES

		Mar '17	Feb '17 to Mar '17	Mar '16 to Mar '17
		'000	% change	% change
Short-term visitor arrivals
	Trend	712.8	0.1	6.5
	Seasonally adjusted	710.8	-0.7	..
	Original	768.5	..	..
Short-term resident departures
	Trend	823.2	-0.3	1.0
	Seasonally adjusted	803.9	-3.2	..
	Original	720.5	..	..
. . not applicable

Visitor arrivals, Short-term

Resident departures, Short-term

MARCH KEY POINTS

SHORT-TERM VISITOR ARRIVALS TO AUSTRALIA

• Trend estimates: Short-term visitor arrivals during March 2017 (712,800 movements) increased 0.1% compared with February 2017 (712,200 movements). This followed monthly increases of 0.3% in January 2017 and 0.2% in February 2017. The current trend estimate for arrivals is 6.5% higher than in March 2016.
• Seasonally adjusted estimates: During March 2017, short-term visitor arrivals (710,800 movements) decreased 0.7% compared with February 2017 (715,700 movements). This followed monthly increases of 1.1% in January 2017 and 0.3% in February 2017.
• Original estimates: There were 768,500 short-term visitor arrivals to Australia in March 2017.

SHORT-TERM RESIDENT DEPARTURES FROM AUSTRALIA

• Trend estimates: Short-term resident departures during March 2017 (823,200 movements) decreased 0.3% compared with February 2017 (826,000 movements). This followed monthly decreases of 0.1% in January 2017 and 0.2% in February 2017. The current trend estimate for departures is 1.0% higher than in March 2016.
• Seasonally adjusted estimates: During March 2017, short-term resident departures (803,900 movements) decreased 3.2% compared with February 2017 (830,700 movements). This followed a monthly increase of 2.6% in January 2017 and a monthly decrease of 2.0% in February 2017.
• Original estimates: There were 720,500 short-term resident departures from Australia in March 2017.

NOTES


FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE	Release Date
April 2017	13 June 2017
May 2017	14 July 2017
June 2017	15 August 2017
July 2017	12 September 2017
August 2017	13 October 2017
September 2017	13 November 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 March 2017, the ABS added 232,611 records to account for missing outgoing passenger cards. The ABS also added 372 records to account for a higher level of missing incoming passenger cards. A total of 232,983 missing records were added to the overseas arrivals and departures data for March 2017. 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.

UPCOMING CHANGES

Please note that changes to the format of Overseas Arrivals and Departures, Australia (cat. no. 3401.0) are planned for the 12 September 2017 release.

Where do I look for more information?

Information about the upcoming changes will be regularly updated in the Notes Section of each Overseas Arrivals and Departures, Australia (cat. no. 3401.0) issue until the new format is released.


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.