Departure cards to go from Australian airports as people fail to put the document in the box

THAT annoying bit of administration required of overseas travellers before going through security is not long for this world.

THOUSANDS of travellers are not bothering to hand in their departure cards as they exit Australia, but the Bureau of Statistics denies it’s compromising travel data.

As the Department of Immigration and Border Protection prepares to do away with the green cards altogether, the ABS has revealed 232,611 outgoing passenger cards went astray in March.

Another 371 incoming passenger cards were never handed in.

The previous month 231,591 cards were missed, and in January 251,892 outgoing and incoming cards never made it into official hands.

Filling out departure cards is to become a thing of the past in Australia. Picture: John Grainger

In order to account for the missing cards, the Bureau “added” the same number of records based on information collected by airlines and government agencies.

But the situation has raised doubts about the reliability of recent overseas arrivals and departures data.

For the first time in three years, statistics for March showed the number of Aussies heading abroad fell by 50,000 compared with the same time last year.

According to the stats, popular destinations like Bali, Thailand, and New Zealand suffered falls in Aussie visitors of up to 16 per cent.

Longer haul destinations including the US, Greece, Germany and the UK also saw declines ranging from two to 35 per cent.

Australian Federation of Travel Agents CEO Jayson Westbury cast doubt on the apparent drop.

He said there had been no noticeable downturn in bookings from their perspective although the timing of Easter in April this year compared with late March last year may have contributed.

A spokesman for the ABS said the statistics were reliable and represented a “real world change in the data”.

From July, all statistical data will come in electronic form with travellers no longer required to fill out the passenger cards.

“Removing paper-based passenger cards is integral to achieving a seamless and automated traveller experience,” said a statement on the ABS site.

“As a result, the outgoing passenger card is on track to be retired in July 2017.”

Collecting data about outbound travel can help governments target countries for return trips. Picture: iStock

Tourism lecturer at the University of Technology Sydney David Bierman said no one would be sorry to see the green cards go.

“The data collected by the ABS in terms of where people are going to from Australia is next to useless,” said Dr Bierman.

“The questions asked on the card assume travellers visit only one country.”

He said although data about incoming visitors was probably more valuable to governments, Japan had demonstrated the value in detailed analysis of where citizens were travelling.

“By looking at where Japanese people were going overseas, the government was then able to target those countries to fill the planes returning to Japan,” Dr Bierman said.

“As a result there’s now about 24 million people travelling to Japan each year compared with 17 million Japanese people going abroad.”