5/24/2021

Immigration and Tourism Data

  • On 20th March 2020 Australia closed its borders to all non-citizens and non-residents to curb the spread of Covid-19. Since then Australia has loss close to 20.5 million arrivals that would have otherwise happen. According to The Conversation (2021), that would cost the economy about $31.5m a day.

  • The overseas travel and arrival and departure datasets are maintained by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and is provided to educate and inform the public about the tourism and transport industry.

  • This slideshow visualises how travel restriction across the world has halted the inflow of tourism, visa holders and citizens from entering Autralia. Through this storyboard, the hope is that viewers will understand the devasting blow towards, the immigration, tourism and travel sector, the lifeblood of the Australian economy.

Short-term Visitor Arrival

  • Australia’s reliance on tourism and travel has come to a screeching halt with border restriction. The 15 countries above shows a 97% decrease from 183,270 in March 2020 to 5,140 in March 2021.
  • New Zealand and US had significantly more short term visitor arrival than the other 13 countries.

Australian Citizen Arrival & Departures

  • From 2017 to Jan 2020, there is a seasonal and steady flow of Australian Citizens arriving and departing. However in Feb 2020 that number pummeted from almost 1 million down to 15,000 a 99.85% drop.
  • Due to the vaccines roll out and total elimination strategy of Australia, the number of arrival and departure climbs slightly from February 2021.

Visa Type

  • The visitor arriving onshore have significantly decline after Covid-19 especially temporary work visas and temporary student visas.
  • A massive gap in international students have caused major damage to the universities, hospitality and tourism sector.

State

The states hardest hit by the restrictions are New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia. Most states had a 97% year on year drop before pre-Covid levels.

State during COVID-19

The number of arrival in each state has been erratic due to the multiple snap lockdowns and the closing of borders to certain states.

In July 2020, Victoria went back to a second lockdown lasting 6 months till November as seen in the long plateau of close to zero arrivals in that state. During the second week of December 2020, New South Wales northern beaches cluster grew sending the state into a lockdown lasting through Christmas and New Years.

Conclusion

  • The effect of Covid-19 has hit Australia’s tourism and transport sector causing heavy losses for small businesses and the tourism sector, disrupting international travel leaving many Australians stranded abroad.

  • The hard border restriction have caused skilled labour that would otherwise have migrated and settled in Australia to dwindled causing shortage of workers across numerous industry. Meanwhile, the loss of international students have been estimated to cost $18 billion to the Australian economy and with 17,300 job cuts in the universities (The Age, 2021).

  • There appears to be a gimmer a hope with the roll out of the vaccine coupled with the easing of state restrictions that has improved the Australia’s Gross Domestic Product and slowly rebooted the economy.

  • However, with one of the strictest restriction on international travel and no plans of reopening borders, one is left wondering if the price of being a lone nation justifiable and ultimately realistic.

References