Irish Lions Helped Aussie Tourism for June

Tourism has risen for the month of June in Australia, with the largest rise in visitors mostly coming from the fans of rugby favorites the Irish Lions.

The team from the UK has recently been in the country for the one-in-12 year rugby test series, giving a surge of arrivals to up to 68% or 81,400 for June.

The Aussie team lost to the UK team, but with these record-breaking numbers, it didn’t seem to matter. The boost has lifted visitor arrivals overall, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics which released the numbers last week.

Last year, visitor arrivals were recorded highest at 10% also from June.

According to the bureau, it’s estimated that the “invasion from the UK” last month accounted for some $150 million boost for the national economy.

Meanwhile, Chinese visitors coming in the country fell a little bit between the months May and June. For months, analysts and experts have been taking notice of the number of Chinese tourists in Australia, following a decline in the number of Japanese visitors.

The bureau also said that short-term trips rose to 5% compared to last June, or about 734,000.