Domestic market hurt by Aussie wanderlust
Australians squeeze overseas visitors out of seats
Australians have travelled across the country in their highest numbers since the pandemic, despite wild weather impacting popular destinations in Queensland, tourism operators say.
But the industry says inbound international tourism is not meeting expectations because Australians prioritising overseas travel in the wake of the pandemic and a lack of airline capacity was acting as a roadblock.
Flight Centre data shows that domestic travel bookings increased by 2 per cent from the previous year, and the Gold Coast, Ballina-Byron and Tasmania were the most popular destinations, while demand for Western Australia, Uluru and Alice Springs also surged.
The operator of Discovery Parks and G’Day Parks, G’day Group said bookings in WA were up 20 per cent from the previous year, and South Australia also did well as it saw more budget-conscious holiday-makers.
Popular destinations in Queensland, however, were affected by wild weather events. Cyclone Jasper caused damage across Far North Queensland and the temporary closure of Cairns Airport which peak body Accommodation Australia said caused occupancy rates to drop from mid 70 per cent to 30 per cent over December.
On the Gold Coast, wild thunderstorms forced the region’s theme parks to close for several days.
Flight Centre chief executive Graham Turner said that the small spike in domestic tourism was dwarfed by a 15 per cent bounce in international booking over the Christmas period.
“People are still catching up from the Covid era where they couldn’t fly and are prioritising international trips,” Mr Turner said. “It is hard to know whether this will continue but forward bookings for overseas are very strong for the northern hemisphere summer.”
Tourism Research Australia forecasts that international tourists won’t surpass pre-pandemic levels until 2025 and the recovery was only two thirds complete. Meanwhile, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported that the number of Australians returning from an overseas holiday was only down 7 per cent from pre-pandemic levels.
Mr Turner said that the popularity of outbound travel was affecting the volume of international tourists who could enter Australia and that limited capacity and higher airfares was making the country expensive to visit.
“There is still a long way to go to get back to pre-pandemic levels for inbound tourism and how long will depend on capacity, with the big volume of Aussies travelling taking up much of the available seats,” he said.
The federal and Queensland governments are hoping to draw tourists back to Far North Queensland with a $5m fund to support local operators and to offer discounted airfares to the region.
Australian Federation of Travel Agents chief executive Dean Long said floods and rain that impacted Queensland resorted in cancellations from travellers who he observed had opted against rebooking into another destination.
“It was interesting that we did not see those funds get deployed elsewhere, but north Queensland is a particular destination with activities that are very unique in Australia,” he said.
G’day Group chief executive Grant Wilckens said the summer holiday period had met expectations, but weather had dampened demand in parts of the country.
“Overall we are pretty happy with how summer has gone. We’ve hit our targets for December and will do so January, and we are currently tracking up 10 per cent from pre-Covid levels,” he said.
Over the December and January, the Qantas Group expected to fly more than 8.5 million people across 70,000 Qantas and Jetstar flights, while Virgin Australia forecast 3.3 million would travel on its network.