JANUARY KEY FIGURES

		Jan '17	Dec '16 to Jan '17	Jan '16 to Jan '17
		'000	% change	% change
Short-term visitor arrivals
	Trend	713.0	0.3	8.5
	Seasonally adjusted	716.7	1.2	..
	Original	725.8	..	..
Short-term resident departures
	Trend	836.4	0.4	3.1
	Seasonally adjusted	851.9	2.7	..
	Original	771.3	..	..
. . not applicable

Visitor arrivals, Short-term

Resident departures, Short-term

JANUARY KEY POINTS

SHORT-TERM VISITOR ARRIVALS TO AUSTRALIA

• Trend estimates: Short-term visitor arrivals during January 2017 (713,000 movements) increased 0.3%, compared with December 2016 (710,600 movements). This followed monthly increases of 0.4% in November 2016 and December 2016. The current trend estimate for arrivals is 8.5% higher than in January 2016.
• Seasonally adjusted estimates: During January 2017, short-term visitor arrivals (716,700 movements) increased 1.2% compared with December 2016 (707,800 movements). This followed a monthly decrease of 0.7% in November 2016 and a monthly increase of 0.6% in December 2016.
• Original estimates: There were 725,800 short-term visitor arrivals to Australia in January 2017.

SHORT-TERM RESIDENT DEPARTURES FROM AUSTRALIA

• Trend estimates: Short-term resident departures during January 2017 (836,400 movements) increased 0.4%, compared with December 2016 (832,800 movements). This followed monthly increases of 0.2% in November 2016 and 0.3% in December 2016. The current trend estimate for departures is 3.1% higher than in January 2016.
• Seasonally adjusted estimates: During January 2017, short-term resident departures (851,900 movements) increased 2.7% compared with December 2016 (829,400 movements). This followed a monthly decrease of 3.8% in November 2016 and a monthly increase of 2.1% in December 2016.
• Original estimates: There were 771,300 short-term resident departures from Australia in January 2017.

NOTES


FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE	Release Date
February 2017	12 April 2017
March 2017	12 May 2017
April 2017	13 June 2017
May 2017	14 July 2017
June 2017	15 August 2017
July 2017	12 September 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 January 2017, the ABS added 249,612 records to account for missing outgoing passenger cards. The ABS also added 2,280 records to account for a higher level of missing incoming passenger cards. A total of 251,892 missing records were added to the overseas arrivals and departures data for January 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.


INQUIRIES

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