Less Asians visit Australia

Less Asians visit Australia

SYDNEY (DPA): The number of Asians visiting Australia continues to fall because of the regional economic down-turn, with arrivals from Malaysia down by a third and those from Indonesia down by a quarter.

Official figures released Monday for October show arrivals from Northeast Asia were down an average 22 percent, with the steepest falls in South Korea (72 percent), Taiwan (22 percent), Japan (9 percent) and Hong Kong (3 percent).

Numbers from Southeast Asia were down a cumulative 17 percent with the sharpest falls in Malaysia (33 percent) and Indonesia (24 percent).

More arrivals from North America and Europe did not offset the falls, with the total number of visitors to Australia in October down 3.2 percent from the level in October 1997.