Latest ABS figures quantify huge drop in visitor numbers

As anyone working in the travel and tourism industry knows, visitor arrivals to Australia have slowed to a trickle.

Now the Australian Bureau of Statistics has quantified the remarkable drop in numbers through its latest update released on Friday.

Lowest arrival number since 2013-14

This shows that the country recorded 6.7-million overseas visitor arrivals for the year 2019-20. The figure is 27.9% down on the previous year and the lowest number of arrivals since 2013-14.

The impact of COVID-19 on travel to Australia commenced in February 2020, with the start of border restrictions by the Australian Government.

Prior to this the nation set a record with 9.5-million visitors for the year ending January 2020.

Increases every month until February

“Over the last year there were increases every month until February 2020, when the impact of COVID-19 started,” said ABS Director of Migration Statistics, Jenny Dobak

“Once the tighter restrictions came into effect on the 20 March, the drop in visitors arriving was dramatic, being close to 100%.”

By way of comparison, in July 2019 there were just over 790 000 short-term visitors to the country for the month. By June 2020 that figure had contracted to a mere 5 400. A quarter of that figure was from New Zealand.

Student arrivals show near-total collapse

An even more remarkable – and concerning – statistic is the complete collapse of international student numbers arriving in the country.

In June 2019 there were 45 980 student arrivals. In June 2020 that number stood at less than 60.

Given this figure, it is easy to see why Australia’s universities have had to slash budgets and retrench academic and support staff.

Kiwis our largest source of visitors

During 2019-20, New Zealand was the largest source country with over 1-million visitors. This was followed by China (900 000) and the USA (581 000).

For the year, the average duration of stay for visitors arriving on a short-term trip was 12 days. Of the top 10 source countries, those travelling from India stayed the longest (53 days on average), followed by the UK (20 days). The shortest durations were for Japan (6 days) and New Zealand (7 days).