28 REGION AUSTRALIA &
28 REGION AUSTRALIA & PACIFIC the Market - inbound Growth in most zones, reflecting dynamism in Asia Victoria The islands in the vast Pacific Ocean are dominated in geography by one, Australia. So it is in the visitor business. Australia counts more visitors – 6 million in 2012 (see Table 1) – than the rest of the region combined. (Hawaii actually counts more, a total of 8mn, but about two-thirds of those are from the US mainland, and do not usually figure in directly comparable data.) The fabled destination of Tahiti (which, with Bali, probably shares the mostwidely known image for ‘exotic tourism’) is smaller than most realise – only 170,000 visitors, about 3000/week, in 2012. Yet growth was small also; just 3%. The main reason for this is air access. Those vast Pacific distances mean airlines need to operate dedicated flights, and to predominantly tourist destinations (rather than those with more businessand other types of travellers) that may not be profitable. Australia also ‘suffers’ from its Pacific location, although less so because it has a thriving economy and a bigger population. But some leisure travellers – in these current economic times – find the cost of such a long journey simply too high, even if air fares are fair. That partly explains Australia’s lower relative growth – 5% in 2012, compared with closer to 7% in Asia. Partly for those same reasons, visitors to New Zealand fell 1% in 2012. It had a turbulent year - highest monthly growth at 15%, biggest fall 19%. Both Guam and Hawaii gained from a recovery in Japan, an important source of visitors for both. Total outbound travel from Japan grew 10% in 2012. For Hawaii, that represented most of its increase; total US outbound grew only about 3% in 2012. Developments in Fiji are difficult to measure – literally. Growth was 4% in Q1 2012 but there has been no data release since then, including for airport passenger traffic. Domestic political infighting has prompted some travellers from its main markets – Australia and New Zealand – to choose leisure destinations in Asia instead. Of other Pacific destinations, visitor counts into the Cook Islands were growing at 7%, New Caledonia 1%, Palau (also benefitting from travel from Japan) 9%, Papua New Guinea 3%, Samoa 5%, Vanuatu 16%. Going forward, an important factor for Pacific destinations will be their success in attracting the outbound China travel market. Australia has done well out of this – mainly because of extensive and fast-growing air connections. Arrivals from China in Australia increased around 16% in 2012. auStraLia; ViSitor marKetS New Zealand remains the largest source of visitors for Australia (see Table 3), almost twice as large as the second largest. The surprise is that growth was only 2% when it has been assumed that shorter-haul travel would have grown faster, relatively. Another important market development is that China’s 16% growth took it past (a falling) UK in 2012 to become Australia’s secondlargest market source. AN IMPOrTANT FACTOr FOr PACIFIC DEsTINATIONs WILL BE ThEIr sUCCEss IN ATTrACTING ThE OUTBOUND ChINA TrAVEL MArkET The UK’s 2% drop is partly related to the high cost of travel to Australia, in times of economic slowdown, and the UK’s very-high departure tax on longdistance travellers. Japan’s 6% growth was below its total outbound travel growth of 10%. Singled out in the table are some smaller markets. Among these, Australia has done well to attract this number of visitors from Brazil. For many destinations, Russia has become a sizeable market over the past two years; the 17% growth into Australia, although on a tiny base, indicates Australia has attracted its fair share. The 10% drop from South Africa – which has had strong links with Australia – indicates that the structure of this market may be changing. Two other markets deserve mention. Relative to the size of its population and travel market, Sweden’s 36,000 is a good market for Australia, as is the UAE, thanks to its two marketing-active airlines, Emirates and Etihad. The 51,000 (a strong 12% growth) is believed to include a good share of non-nationals living in the UAE. New ZeaLaNd; ViSitor marKetS New Zealand mirrors Australia in that Australia produces most of its visitors. That market represents a huge 45% of the total (see Table 4); the total of all others in the top-10 is still smaller than Australia alone. That partly explains why New Zealand’s visitor count fell in 2012 – because the Australia total was down fractionally. As in Australia, visitors in New Zealand from ITB BERLIN NEWS • Wednesday 27 th February 2013 www.itb-berlin-news.com
AUSTRALIA & PACIFIC REGION 29 Pacific taBle 3 VISIToR aRRIVaLS IN aUSTRaLIa, 2012 Market* No,x1000 Growth,% Share╪,% China grew strongly - an extraordinary 35% - to overtake those from the UK and the US and to become New Zealand’s secondlargest market source. Both UK and the US fell, as did two other big long haul markets, Canada and Germany. To counter these long haul falls, New Zealand needs to boost traffic from markets that are closer, relatively. But although New Zealand’s China total was almost double overall growth from that market, New Zealand underperformed in Japan and, more surprisingly, Korea - arrivals in New Zealand from Korea were flat. Also a surprise was the fall from Malaysia and Singapore, both of which have had growing links with New Zealand in terms of business and education as well as leisure and the resulting VFR (visiting friends or relatives). outBouNd pacific Outbound travel from the Pacific, as with inbound, is also dominated notsurprisingly by the two largest population markets, Australia and New Zealand. In 2012, however, growth was slight – 5% for Australia and 4% for New Zealand (see Table 2). This is despite the fact that, in the case of Australia, its strong currency would have made international travel relatively less costly. The other factor which should boost outbound travel from Australia is the growth in its immigration population originating from Asia. Indications are that this did indeed help produce relatively better growth to Asia – some of which might therefore be termed VFR (visiting friends or relatives) travel. Growth could be held back by the same reason as for inbound travel – the high cost, even if a good deal, of travelling long distances. That said, figures from the UNWTO (World Tourism Organization) indicate that spend on outbound travel from Australia grew about 5% in 2012. That matches perfectly the number of outbound travellers, but given that currencyexchange factor, there could be an argument that spend growth should have been lower. For New Zealand, outbound spend was increasing 6% in 2012. domeStic Domestic travel in Australia and New Zealand are thriving businesses. They support not only mainlydomestic airlines such as Jetstar in both markets, Virgin Australia and Tiger Australia, but also the domestic operations of Air New Zealand and Qantas, and some regional-only airlines in Australia. In addition, there are also innumerable domestic travel operators such as hotels/ motels, car/camping-car companies, bus lines, and others. In 2012, Australia counted about 75mn domestic trips, up 4%, which included at least one overnight. They produced 281mn visitor nights, also up 4% - an average of almost four nights per trip. New South Wales gets about one-third of the trips, followed by Queensland 27%, and Victoria 20%. Holidays count for a veryhigh 46% of visitor nights, with VFR (visiting friends or relatives) 32% (of which most would probably also be holiday travellers), and only 15% for business travel. On their Australia domestic routes in 2012: Jetstar sold about 9% more seats, totalling 11mn; Qantas about 1% more to 22mn; and Virgin about 5% more to 17mn. On its New Zealand domestic routes in 2012, Air New Zealand sold about 8mn seats, unchanged from 2011. taBle 1 VISIToR aRRIVaLS IN maIN paCIfIC DESTINaTIoNS, 2012 Destination Number Growth,% Australia 6,145,500 4.6 Fiji┼ 699,882 3.7 Guam┼ 1,307,800 12.8 Hawaii*┼ 7,822,250 9.0 New Zealand 2,564,618 -1.4 Tahiti┼ 168,304 3.4 *Air arrivals only; includes mainland US. ┼Calculations by TBA from latest-available data. Source: Destination Marketing Offices, Pacific Asia Travel Association, Travel Business Analyst, World Tourism Organization. TABLE 2 oUTBoUND TRaVEL fRom maIN paCIfIC maRkETS, 2012 Market Number Growth,% Australia 8,202,791 5.2 New Zealand 2,180,430 4.2 Notes: Both are calculations by TBA from latest-available data. Source: Pacific Asia Travel Association, Travel Business Analyst. New Zealand 1201 2.4 19.5 China 626 15.6 10.2 UK 594 -2.4 9.7 US 479 5.0 7.8 Japan 354 6.4 5.8 Singapore 344 7.9 5.6 Malaysia 263 8.9 4.3 Korea 197 -0.6 3.2 Hong Kong 177 6.2 2.9 India 159 7.4 2.6 Germany 155 0.6 2.5 Indonesia 146 3.7 2.4 France 98 3.8 1.6 Taiwan 95 12.2 1.5 Thailand 84 -1.8 1.4 Ireland 61 4.3 1.0 Others╪ Brazil 31 6.5 0.5 Fiji 33 0.9 0.5 Italy 61 10.9 1.0 Philippines 59 3.9 1.0 Russia 17 16.7 0.3 South Africa 58 -10.3 0.9 Sweden 36 5.8 0.6 Switzerland 43 2.4 0.7 UAE 51 12.2 0.8 Vietnam 37 11.0 0.6 0.0 Total 6146 4.6 100.0 *1% of total, or above. Shown for market interest, not necessarily in size order.┼Calculated by TBA. Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Travel Business Analyst. TABLE 4 VISIToR aRRIVaLS IN NEW ZEaLaND, 2012 Market* No,x1000 Growth,% Share╪,% Australia 1156 -0.1 45.1 China 197 35.4 7.7 UK 190 -17.7 7.4 US 178 -3.8 6.9 Japan 72 4.5 2.8 Germany 64 0.1 2.5 Korea 53 0.2 2.1 Canada 46 -5.5 1.8 Singapore 36 -5.9 1.4 India 30 5.6 1.2 Malaysia 29 -16.0 1.1 Hong Kong 26 3.4 1.0 Others╪ France 25 -31.9 1.0 Ireland 11 -31.8 0.4 Philippines 10 11.7 0.4 South Africa 16 -40.2 0.6 Thailand 17 -3.3 0.7 Total 2565 -1.4 100.0 *1% of total, or above. ┼Shown for market interest, not necessarily in size order. ┼Calculated by TBA. Source: Statistics New Zealand, Travel Business Analyst. ITB BERLIN NEWS • Wednesday 27 th February 2013
