Chinese visitors flock down under to ‘say g’day’ to Ruby the Roo

Chinese visitors to Australia have doubled since Ruby the Roo urged them to ‘Come and Say G’day’ in a $125m campaign.

China reinstated Australia’s “approved destination” status last month, allowing tour groups to travel down under once again.

Chinese visitors are coming to say g’day at an astonishing rate, making China the second biggest source of international arrivals down under after New Zealand.

Prior to the Covid pandemic, China was Australia’s largest inbound tourist market with 1.4 million visitors a year, after overtaking New Zealand in early 2018.

Australian Bureau of Statistics data showed it was only a matter of time before history repeated, with 79,040 short-term arrivals from China in July, up from 37,330 the previous month.

The 111 per cent increase followed the June 30 launch of Tourism Australia’s $125m “Come and Say G’Day” campaign in China, featuring a plush toy kangaroo called Ruby.

Tourism Australia managing director Phillipa Harrison said it was encouraging to see such strong month-on-month growth in Chinese travellers.

“We have always been optimistic about China, which is why Tourism Australia remained active in the market right through the pandemic, leading up to the launch of our Come and Say G’day campaign in June,” said Ms Harrison.

“It is great to see since then international arrivals climb, with China now becoming our second largest inbound market in terms of visitation.”

Tourism Australia’s Come and Say G’Day campaign is already paying dividends.

She said there was much optimism the numbers would continue to grow, after China recently reinstated Australia’s “approved destination status” permitting travel by tour groups.

“Our partners on the ground are telling us that Australia remains one of the top destinations Chinese travellers want to visit,” Ms Harrison said.

Other key markets including the US, UK and Japan also grew in July, but the total number of short-term arrivals in Australia remained at just under 80 per cent of pre-Covid levels.

The struggle to return to 100 per cent of 2019 figures was largely due to international airline capacity, that remained well below pre-Covid levels.

Qantas recently indicated it did not expect to return to full pre-pandemic international capacity until mid-2024, and Emirates was on a similar trajectory.

The situation had prompted Australian Tourism Export Council managing director Peter Shelley to write to Transport Minister Catherine King, expressing the industry’s concern at the shortfall.

“By allowing more competition into Australia from international airlines, we are opening up

the opportunity for job creation, higher export earnings, lower airfares both into and out of

Australia all thanks to an increase in international tourist arrivals,” Mr Shelley said.

“A recent survey undertaken by ATEC showed that the number one issue impacting recovery was aviation: both airfares and capacity.”

Although he made a point of not mentioning the Qatar Airways’ debacle, Mr Shelley urged Ms King to reform Sydney Airport’s demand management scheme.

He said the difficulty international airlines faced to obtain slots at Sydney Airport needed urgent address.

“The stark reality is that the current demand management scheme at Sydney Airport hinders our global competitiveness and impacts the whole country’s access given the ‘gateway’ status and preference of international airlines to fly into Sydney,” wrote Mr Shelley.

Heading out of Australia, numbers were at about 90 per cent of pre-Covid levels in July, with Bali, New Zealand, the UK and the US our top destinations.

Italy also featured in the top five, with Australians pouring into the country in even bigger numbers than in 2019, nudging Thailand into sixth spot.

China rose from ninth to the eighth most popular destination for short term overseas trips.

Fiji, Japan and Singapore also saw a lot of Australians in July, as travel continued to be prioritised in household budgets ahead of other discretionary items such as homewares and alcohol.