CANBERRA, July 8 (Xinhua) -- World tourism growth continues to outstrip a stagnant Australian tourism industry, Australian Bureau of Statistics said on Tuesday basing on its latest figures.

    The figures showed that inbound visitor arrivals grew just 0.8 percent in May with 475,600 tourists, compared to the same month last year. But China's growth hits 20.9 percent and India 20.5, two biggest source market increases, followed by Malaysia with 11.2 percent.

    Tourism Transport Forum (TTF) general manager Olivia Wirth said on Tuesday the figures amounted to a measly 0.2 percent growth in the first five months this year, compared with a worldwide growth of five percent between January and April, recorded by the World Tourism Organizations.

    Wirth said it was an alarming trend at a time when Australians holidaying overseas had grown by nearly 11 percent over the same period.

    "The figures show that Australian tourism is being outpaced by the world," Wirth said, adding that the industry had a big job ahead of it to turn around the 85 billion dollars (81.6 billion U.S. dollars) industry.