Chinese tourist numbers on the rise

A tourism industry group says efforts to attract more visitors to Australia from Asia appear to paying dividends.

The Tourism and Transport Forum says arrivals from China rose by more than 27 per cent in January and visitors from Indonesia increased by more than 13 per cent.

Chief executive John Lee says lunar New Year celebrations were a major factor in the increase but the Chinese market has enormous potential.

"When you think that over 53 million Chinese had an overseas holiday last year it is an amazing market ready to be tapped," he said.

"We're strongly encouraged that the strategy deployed by Tourism Australia over the last five to 10 years is now seeing very strong numbers coming directly out of China into Australia."

Mr Lee says it is important to build on the momentum.

"Our neighbours over in Hawaii and also the US are also vying to get more Chinese visitors and we've seen big numbers of growth heading to the States, so it is a globally competitive market but there is nothing like Australia, so it is important that we sell our attributes and our assets into our major Chinese cities to ensure that growth continues," he said.

Gold Coast Tourism says the increase in arrivals from China is part of a trend.

Chief executive Martin Winter says it is a trend with a spike.

"In saying that, we've seen over the last three years very strong steady growth from mainland China," he said.

"However, these numbers in the first month of any year will always have the Chinese New Year numbers involved in them, so it's probably up maybe 5 per cent on what the trend is but the long-term trend is incredibly strong."

Source - abc.net.au