Tourism bodies eye China as arrivals continue to fall

With official figures showing that Australia is now a net exporter of tourists, tourism bodies have thrown their support behind billionaire James Packer’s push for a focus on the middle-class in China.

Figures released yesterday by the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed short-term visitor arrivals fall by 2.6% in June, while short-term resident departures from Australia increased by 1.4% over the month, and were 10.9% higher on an annual basis.

The ABS says short-term resident departures have “continued to exceed short-term visitors arrivals since the year ended June 2008, when departures overtook arrivals for the first time in 22 years.”

“In the year ended June 2011, short-term resident departures exceeded short-term visitor arrivals by 1.5 million movements,” the ABS said. The ABS said Australians took 7.44 million overseas trips in the year to June.

The tourism body Tourism and Transport Forum says rather than rue the fact that Australians will be lured overseas by the high local currency and wanderlust, Australia needs to focus on bringing international tourists here.

TTF spokesman Rowan Barker says the emerging middle classes in Asia are going to provide Australia with great opportunities over the next decade or more.

“That’s not to say that we ignore the traditional market, but a lot of work is going into attracting the middle-class market in China especially, who want to travel and can afford to travel,” he says.

Barker’s comments follow warnings by gaming billionaire James Packer that tourism was “meant to be one of the biggest markets for Australia” but was a “lost opportunity.”

He criticised the promotion of the outback overseas, pointing out that most tourists travel to the major cities, and suggested that Australians have too high an opinion of some of its major attractions such as the Great Barrier Reef.

The ABS said yesterday that the most popular destinations for overseas trips were Indonesia, US, the United Kingdom, Channel Islands and Isle of Man, New Zealand, Thailand, Fuji, China, Italy, Singapore and France.

“When trend estimates for short-term resident departures for June 2010 and June 2011 were compared, the highest percentage increase was recorded for Thailand (32.1%). The next highest percentage increase was for the United States of America (24.8%) followed by Italy (21.2%),” the ABS said.

By contrast, New Zealanders were the most common visitors from overseas, followed by residents of the US, Singapore, China, UK Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, Malaysia, Japan, Indonesia, Korea and India.