Indians are the fastest growing short-term visitors to Australia according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). 

Through comparing the short-term visitor arrivals for December 2017 and December 2018, ABS found that the highest percentage increase was recorded for Indian visitors at 13.3 per cent. Japan followed with 12.3 per cent and Singapore at 8.1 per cent. 

The highest percentage decreases were recorded by the United Kingdom at -3.4 per cent and Germany at -2.4 per cent. 

However, the highest numbers of visitors to Australia in December 2018 were still from China with 121,100 visitors, followed by New Zealand with 115,900. 

Overall in 2018, 9.2 million overseas travellers arrived in Australia for a short-term stay. China became the largest source of short-term visitor arrivals with 1.43 million people, overtaking New Zealand with 1.39 million people. 

“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. Ten years before that, in 1998, there were only 77,000 visits by people from China,” ABS Director of Migration statistics, Myles Burleigh said. 

Moreover, the number of female visitors was higher than male visitors in 2018, with 4.8 million and 4.4 million people respectively. 

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