Australia gets set for Chinese New Year tourism boost

The longest and most important celebration in the Chinese calendar, Chinese New Year – also known as Spring Festival – starts this week on 19 February.

Australia is set to see visitor arrivals from China boom over the next fortnight, with big increases in air capacity and charter flights being put on by Chinese airlines during the holiday period.

Tourism Australia Managing Director John O’Sullivan said Chinese New Year is a huge holiday for the Chinese – Australia’s most valuable and fastest growing inbound tourism market.

“With Australia sitting so high on the Chinese long haul travel ‘wish list’, Chinese New Year always provides a significant boost to our arrivals figures around this time of year, especially with the additional capacity and charter flights being put on by our big Chinese airline partners, China Southern, Air China and China Eastern,” he said.

In the month of January 2014, when Chinese New Year fell last year, Australia recorded 95,000 Chinese arrivals, up 67 per cent on the same month the previous year.

“The timing of this year’s ‘Spring Festival’ couldn’t be better, coming just weeks after the signing of a landmark new air services agreement, lifting the existing cap on seats from Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou to our major gateway cities of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. This move alone boosts aviation capacity by an immediate 18 per cent, with more increases to follow over the next two years, and represents a huge boost towards us achieving our long-term Chinese growth targets,” said Mr O’Sullivan.

Celebrating Chinese New Year in Australia

In 2015, Australian cities play host to a number of Chinese New Year festivals. Each venue offers its own unique festival theme, performances and food. Visitors can experience Chinese lion dance, dragon boat races, firecrackers, traditional folk music, dancers, martial artists and much more. Find out more.

Fast facts:

• In the past few years, Tourism Australia has signed major strategic MoU agreements with China's three largest airlines – China Southern, China Eastern and Air China; 
• During the past five years, aviation capacity between China and Australia has more than doubled to 1.1 million seats per annum; 
• In 2014, approximately 100 million Chinese travelled internationally, with numbers expected to increase to 200 million in five years; 
• There were 789,300 Chinese arrivals in past 12 months, up 10.5 per cent (ABS: YE Sept 2014). Annual trip spend was nearly A$5.3bn (IVS: YE Sept 2014), up 55 per cent in three years. 

Find out more about visitor trends and market region profile data for Greater China.