Overseas travel balance improving
The number of Chinese visitors to Australia rose to 901,400 over the last 12 months and, if the trend continues, it will hit one million this year.
Five years ago, the annual flow of visitors from China was a mere 479,600.
“If the chart on Chinese tourists to Australia instead referred to home prices, observers would call it a bubble,” CommSec chief economist Craig James said in a note on the data.
But visitors from China are only one part of the flows of travellers into and out of Australia.
The turnstiles are spinning faster on the exit lane.
In April, 610,300 overseas visitors arrived in Australia.
The problem for Australia is that in the same month, 776,500 Australian residents packed their bags and headed abroad for holidays, visits to relatives, or short-term business travel.
The difference – let’s call it the traveller deficit – was 166,200, according to the seasonally adjusted figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Thursday.
The good news is that it’s better than it was.
The gap averaged 195,000 in 2013 and 181,000 in 2014, so it’s heading in the right direction for the Australian economy.
The more travellers come to Australia, and the more Australians holiday at home rather than abroad, the healthier the economy will be.
The latest International Visitor Survey by Tourism Research Australia showed international visitors spent $31.1 billion on their trips to Australia.
The lower exchange rate is making Australia a more attractive destination.
Against the US dollar, the Australian dollar is currently about 25 per cent down from its period of extraordinary strength from early 2011 to early 2013.
That’s the main reason why the traveller deficit is improving.
But although adjustments in consumer behaviour happen instantaneously in economic textbooks, they take a lot longer in real life.
At the current rate of improvement it would take another five years for arrivals to be equal to departures again, as they last did in 2007.
Email the Travel Weekly team at traveldesk@travelweekly.com.au
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