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.