Tourism Australia is seeing the fruits of their concerted drive to woo tourists from the Asian continent.  Figures released show despite the country attracting less visitors form Japan and South Korea, other Asian countries have made up for the loss of visitor numbers.

Australian tourism has been receiving less Japanese visitors since recording a drop of 4 percent during the 2004-2005 period. "Japanese holidaymakers no longer view Australia a must-see destination,"

In the first five months of this year, 104,800 South Koreans visited Australia, the second largest visitors after the Japanese, but still down 7 percent from the same period last year.

Australia is especially benefiting from the rapid economic growth of the middle class in India and China.

There were 36,500 visitors from India in the first five months up to May, a jump of 31 percent compared to last year. India is now Australia's tenth biggest tourist market, jumping from twentieth in 2003.

On the decline is the number of visitors from Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Taiwan which have all fallen sharply.

It has become cheaper to fly within Asia than to Australia due to favorable exchange rates and the low-cost of air travel offered by low-cost carriers in Asia.  "We are losing our appeal as a business and convention (MICE) destination to other Asian destinations," said Matthew Hingerty from the Australian Tourism Export Council.

Australian tourism recorded 2.2 million visitors in the first five months of 2006, still down compared to the same period in 2005.