Overseas visitors to Australia hits record 7 million

Preliminary data estimates released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) last week show international visitor arrivals to Australia for the 12 months ending March 2015 reached just over seven million – the highest Australia has ever seen.

Tourism Australia Managing Director John O’Sullivan said the figure was an “impressive milestone” and represented year-on-year growth of eight per cent.

“It demonstrates the continuing strength of our tourism industry and the resonance of our international marketing through successful campaigns such as Restaurant Australia.

“What’s particularly pleasing is that this eight per cent growth in our international numbers is being matched in spending, the key measure of our long term tourism strategy,” said Mr O’Sullivan.

Preliminary Overseas Arrivals and Departures estimates for the March quarter show there were 671,600 short-term visitor arrivals to Australia in the month of March 2015, up 12 per cent on the same time last year. This follows preliminary estimates of 715,200 short-term visitor arrivals in February and 539,100 in January 2015.

Find out more preliminary arrival and departure estimates by state and territory and read full details about the latest ABS international arrivals data for the year ending October 2014 as well as upcoming data release updates.
Arrivals data for October 2014

On 4 May the ABS also released the latest overseas arrivals and departures data for October 2014 which showed 6.8 million visitor arrivals for the year ending October 2014, an increase of 8.5 per cent relative to the previous year. The report also showed there were 583,800 visitor arrivals during October 2014, an increase of 9.2 per cent relative to the same period of the previous year. Find out more.