Swine flu and recession see 80% less Chinese tourists pass through Australian immigration
August 25 2009 by Matt Jones
Swine flu decreases Australia visa applicants
The numbers of Chinese tourists travelling to Australia has gone down by 80% in the last three months.
This large decrease in Chinese tourists to Australia has been accredited to the threat of the H1N1 Swine flu virus and the recession. This development has resulted in considerably fewer Australia visa applications being made by the Chinese.
Australia was the first Western country granted approved destination status by the Chinese government 10 years ago and ever since then the flow of Chinese tourists steadily grew, until now.
Australia was one of the first countries to be hit by the H1N1 Swine influenza virus and by May this year 30 to 50% of bookings made with agents in Beijing and Shanghai were cancelled.
In June the number of Chinese visitors was down 21% when compared to the same period last year and the total number of tourists from northeast Asia was down 26%.
Chinese tourism was Australia’s fastest growing tourism market but now the expected 6% growth rate of Chinese tourists to Australia appears to be very inaccurate.
Last year a total of 2.2 Billion Australian dollars were spent by 356,000 Chinese tourists in Australia. 166,000 Chinese tourists visited in the first four months of this year, which is a 6% increase on last year. But as soon as the Swine flu hit, the numbers started falling fast.
It is not clear why the Chinese tourists are so sensitive to a country’s Swine flu status when compared to other nations, where numbers travelling through Australian immigration have either not decreased or decreased less than with the Chinese. One likely explanation is that the memory of the SARS virus remains strong in the minds of the Chinese.
In 2008 the top five countries tourists to Australia originated from were the UK, Japan, New Zealand and the US - A list very similar to that of expatriates that decide to permanently move to Australia.
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