Headcount
A plateau in permanent and long-term arrivals into Australia has been outweighed by fewer departees.
As such the permanent and long-term inbound intake is still running at very strong levels at just shy of 300,000 per annum over the year to August 2019.
Interestingly, the lower Aussie dollar and other factors saw seasonally adjusted short-term arrivals burn up to the highest level ever in August, at 820,000 for the month.
The multi-decade boom in Chinese visitors gained some fresh legs in August at a seasonally adjusted 129,800 (up from 121,500 a year earlier).
Remember, though, China is but one of the cogs in the Asian Century wheel, albeit the most powerful one.
Moreover, YouGov found in a recent poll that Australia is likely set to be one of the prime beneficiaries of flight from Hong Kong.
Indeed, if you include Taiwan and Hong Kong in the monthly short-term arrivals chart, you'll find that short-term arrivals from the region have never been higher than they've been this year.
February and July tend to be the big-ticket months for education arrivals due to term times.
As it turned out July was not such a blockbuster this year - in fact, arrivals were down year-on-year in July - but a significant portion seemed to spill over into August instead.
Either way, the numbers remain very strong.
As such, Melbourne has been by far and away the biggest economic beneficiary of short-term arrivals over the past year, with annual visitors into Victoria up by +7.3 per cent to just short of 2½ million.
The other standout performers in this regard were Tasmania (up +6 per cent to 92,500), and, somewhat surprisingly, Canberra!
Queensland tourism, after an obligatory bump from the Commonwealth Games, has disappointed.
