China overtook New Zealand as the leading source of visitors to Australia in 2018, according to new data released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
In 2018, people from China made 1.43 million short-term visits to Australia, up 6 per cent on 2017. ABS Director of Migration Statistics, Myles Burleigh, said Australia was an increasingly popular destination for Chinese residents.
“We have seen extremely strong growth in visits from China in recent times. In 2008, there were 353,000 visitors from China, so the number has more than tripled in the last 10 years", Mr Burleigh said.