Overseas traveller arrivals surged in June as a horde of British and Irish rugby fans flocked to Australia to watch their team humble the Wallabies.
The number of arrivals rose by 39,800 or 7.6 per cent in June, the seasonally-adjusted figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Friday showed.
Most of that monthly rise was accounted for by visitors from the UK and Ireland, which were up 33,400, or 63 per cent, to a record high of 86,600.
The hopes of Wallabies supporters evaporated as the Lions took the third and deciding match of the three-test series by an emphatic 41-16 on July 6.
Despite June's rugby-driven surge, the strength of the Australian dollar - even despite falls since its peak in April - has continued to lure more Aussies overseas than the number of visitors it's attracted.
Resident departures in June still outnumbered foreign visitor arrivals by 152,600.
Through the first half of the year, the number of short-term resident departures rose by 38,600, or six per cent, to 716,700.
But arrivals only managed a first-half rise of 27,700, or five per cent, to 564,100 as the Rugby-driven June surge followed a downward trend over the first five months of the year.
