International student arrivals to Australia massively down in January | Alds

There were 360 international student arrivals in January, a decrease of 91,250 students compared with January last year, Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data reveals.

NSW had the largest share of international student arrivals with 140, a decrease of 32,070 students compared with the same time last year.

Victoria had 70, down by 29,380 students, while Queensland had 40, down 15,980, according to overseas arrivals and departures statistics released on Tuesday.

Australian universities have been hit hard by the COVID-19 crisis, as many rely on international students as a big part of their revenue.

That crucial income stream was cut off by the coronavirus pandemic and related border closures.

The international education sector brought $37.5bn to the Australian economy in 2019-20, with China accounting for a staggering $10.5bn of that.

Overall, visitor arrivals to Australia for short-term trips – less than a year – totalled 7990.

This was a 99 per cent drop on last year.

Most arrivals came from New Zealand, which made up a fifth of all visitor arrivals.

This was followed by the United States and United Kingdom.

NSW had most of the short-term arrivals (2910) followed by Victoria (2040) and Queensland (1500).

There were 1.8 million visitor arrivals in Australia in 2020.

This was down more than 80 per cent on the previous year and the lowest since 1987.

Most arrivals came before the federal government imposed travel restrictions on March 20, 2020.

Most came from New Zealand, with a holiday being the main reason given for travel.

Nationally, the median stay was two weeks.

The pandemic forced a massive plunge in travel movements after a decade of strong growth in visitor arrivals to Australia.

Before the onset of COVID-19, a record 9.5 million visitors came to Australia in the year ending January 2020, but the impact of the pandemic led to a substantial decline from February last year onwards.