China is now the largest international visitor source market for Australia, contributing to 18% of the total overseas visitors’ expenditure, against 12% for the UK and 5% for Japan, according to ANZ Bank’s latest economic analysis report.
Australia received 6.3 million international visitors in the first nine months of last year, an increase of 8% y-o-y. Average length of stay for international visitors grew 3% and travelers’ expenditure increased 9% to reach AUD$30.7 billion, an average of AUD$4,700 per visitor.
At an average spending of AUD$5,416 per person, Chinese visitors to Australia had the highest per capita expenditure and spent 50% more than UK visitors.
Chinese tourists made 120,000 visa applications to Australia during the last Spring Festival, up 23% y-o-y.
Chinese tourists have been shifting from traditionally popular destinations like Hong Kong to destinations with depreciating local currencies, including Japan, Korea, the UK and Europe, as well as Australia in the southern hemisphere. In the last two years the Australian dollar has depreciated 27.6% to the US dollar.
“China is our most valuable visitor source market. We are fully aware of the importance of this emerging market and especially the Chinese holiday tourism market,” Australian trade minister Andrew Robb said in a News Corp Australia report. The news report also cited Tourism Australia that the Chinese tourism market was worth AUD$13 billion to the Australian economy.
The civil aviation bureaus of China and Australia signed an amended bilateral air transport agreement in January 23, paving the way for increasing air transport capacity between China and Australia by 171%, to 61,000 seats both ways weekly by October this year, and an additional 9.84% by October next year.(Translation by David)
