As per the UNWTO (1995), inbound tourism involves people travelling to a country for a period of less than one …show more content…
The growth in tourist arrivals has been motivated by the increase in household incomes which gave more people the opportunity to travel overseas. Even though, the Australian exchange rate has affected and reduced the purchasing power of international visitors, many of them have identified “high prices as a reflection of the quality of the Australia’s holiday product”(Productivity Commission, 2015). As per Yap (2012), the global financial crisis which arose between 2008 and 2009 has seen a rise in arrivals from Asian countries, mainly from India (22%), Malaysia (7.3%) and Singapore (2.2%). The increase in international tourism expenditure per visitor gives a very good overview of the economic growth of Australia’s inbound tourism. In 1997-1998, the tourism expenditure per visitor was $3,031 for a total international consumption of $ 12.8 billion (Trewin, 2000) and during the year 2014-2015, this amount doubled to $6,983 and the total international consumption was $33.4 billion (Tourism Research Australia, …show more content…
Technological advances, such as the increase in aircraft efficiency (International Air Transport Association, 2011), and a 30% increase in fuel efficiency over the last decade (Board of Airline Representatives of Australia, 2014), now allows aircrafts to travel with greater performance and more frequently. The creation of international airport hubs and the partnership of big air carriers (Adler & Smilowitz, 2007) has created the opportunity to reduce air travel cost even more. Subsequently, air travel costs fell significantly over the last decades causing a decrease in the price of air tickets and an increase in the demand for international air travel. The increase in demand for air travel caused an increase in international air traffic from 21.097 million passengers in 2005-2006 (Aviation Statistics, 2006) to 33.865 million passengers in 2014-2015 (BITRE, 2015). Hence, even though the amount spent in air travel by visitors accounted for almost 25% of their total expenditure in 2013-2014 (Productivity Commission, 2015), people are still motivated to travel to have a tourism experience.
This paper gives a clear indication of how the Australian tourism industry has flourished over the years and has now become a main contributor to the country’s economy. The main points discussed are the trends in Australia’s inbound tourism over the last two decades, its impact