Travel losing to property

AusTRALIA’s travel industry is losing spend to the first-home buyer property market amid continued restrictions, leading real estate experts believe.

Figures from Tourism Research Australia show that Aussies have saved more than $60 billion a year in cancelled overseas holidays due to COVID impacts, with local property analysts suggesting a portion of that money has been flowing into the real estate market.

“The real difference is people who were planning a big, $30,000 trip around Europe and it’s been off the table for a year now, two years,” Finder’s home loan expert

Sarah Megginson told Domain.

“Every dollar we earn, we have to spend it in Australia.”

The GM of Victorian high-end real estate company The Agency, Peter Kakos, agrees that firsthome buyers had saved money on holidays to put towards a house deposit.

“If people can’t travel they want to make sure they’ve got a better house or a bigger house,” he said.

“People aren’t prepared to wait [to travel] and they go, ‘OK, the money’s there, let’s put it into property,’” Kakos added.

MeAnwhILe a new study by consultancy firm Oliver Wyman has found that less than one in five Australians currently “feel comfortable” to resume international travel, well below the global average of 32%, with low vaccination rates and tough restrictions viewed by the study as a key driver.