Total international arrivals (mix of AUS citizen long and short term and non-AUS citizen long and short term) in Jan23 Australia reached 1.26M a MoM increase of 70,630 vs previous month. As seen in chart 1 (Jan17-Dec22), total overseas arrival has been trending upward since covid, with Jan23’s traffic at 56% of Australia’s peak traffic of 2,257,280 reached in Jan2020.
International short-term arrival numbers (Chart 2,3), visits in Dec22 currently reach 648,790 which is an increase of 575,680 (785%) from dec21. In terms of potential, this is only at 60% compared to international visitor short terms arrivals peak in Dec19 of 1,077,720. In our opinion, a continued surge in arrivals is likely with international travel yet to optimize and return to pre covid era levels, and Australia yet to experience the boom of China reopening.
We can see the closing of the gap further analyzing a few charts. Chart 4 shows the top 10 overseas visitors country of citizenship in Dec22, with visitors from NZ (97k), UK (97K) and USA (66k) being the top 3 overseas visitors.
The next chart (chart 5), shows the accumulated share of arrivals by citizenship from Jan17 to Jan20. We can see China accounted for 18% of all the non-Australian arrivals, which is second place to New Zealand (19%). Thus, we may assume if China was to return full force, there is potential for an approximate 15-20% increase to the overall non-Australian arrivals.
Chart 6 shows the Dec22 arrivals as a % of Dec19. None of the countries of overseas arrivals have reached 2019 levels with India at the highest reaching 76% of 2019 levels. New Zealand, accounting for 19% of the arrivals traffic previously, has only reached 49% of 2019 levels. UK is only at 56% and USA at 40% of 2019 levels. The biggest potential comes from China, with Dec22 arrivals from China at a mere 6% of 2019 levels. Going forward, China will be the main factor in driving the international arrival figures return to pre covid levels.
All Research and Charts Conducted by Charles Man, please ask for permission if reuse. All raw data from STA, CORE LOGIC and STR unless otherwise stated.
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