Australia\'s investment in Tourism well working

The figures of international arrivals and Departures show investment to attract tourism from Asia to Australia is well working, said Minister for Tourism Martin Ferguson in a statement on Tuesday. According to the figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, recent increases in flights to Australia of key Asian airlines such as China Southern and Sichuan Airlines has increased 3.5 percent to 6 million international arrivals in the last twelve months. "We have allocated 48.5 million U.S. dollars to the Asia Marketing Fund to help ensure Australia is the destination of choice and these figures show that this money is well spent," Ferguson said. Arrivals from China, the second largest market by volume and largest by value, continues to grow at record levels, up 16.6 percent in August to almost 427,000 for the calendar year to date. Arrivals from Hong Kong increased 18.3 percent while that from Japan, recovering from last year's tsunami, was up 6.0 percent for the month and 7.1 percent for the year.