Airfares dropping as Aussies flock overseas to surprising destinations

Australian travellers are taking to the skies in record numbers, outstripping pre-pandemic levels for the first time.

With more airline seats now also hitting the market than in 2019, fares on some routes have dropped by as much as 25 per cent, further fuelling the explosion in travel.

Wendy and Stuart Rattray get a reminder of Italy while walking in Melbourne. The pair are among more than 300,000 Australian residents who visited Italy in the 12 months up to February this year.Credit: Joe Armao

“When Australians went en masse to Europe last summer, we thought initially that was just a bit of a sugar hit and it would start to settle down,” said Tom Walley, global managing director of Corporate Traveller, part of the Flight Centre Travel Group.

“But it wasn’t at all. More people are travelling now than pre-COVID, so it’s developed more into a sugar addiction, a real long-term appetite for carbs.”

That craving has seen the number of Australian visitors to South Korea skyrocket 28 per cent over 2019 figures, according to the latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), to Turkey by 24 per cent, to Samoa by 23 per cent, and to Italy, the UAE and Pakistan each by 21 per cent.

At the same time, fares have fallen most to Qatar with a 25 per cent cut in price, on research from Corporate Traveller and FCM Travel, to New Zealand by 23 per cent, to the UAE by 22 per cent, and to Japan and the US, both by 21 per cent.

In Melbourne, business consultants Wendy Rattray, 47, and her husband Stuart, 51, recently returned from a trip to Italy, hiking in the Dolomites and visiting Milan and Venice, and are now planning a jaunt to Japan.

“When we weren’t allowed to travel, it felt a bit claustrophobic and so now I’m enjoying travelling even more than I used to,” Rattray said.

“It was amazing; we loved it. The Dolomites was a real highlight, as was getting up early in Venice, which was crazy busy, and going to St Mark’s to see the sunrise when there was no one else around, and sipping Aperol spritzes ’til late at night.”

Husband Stuart relished sitting in the piazzas of tiny villages, eating and drinking with the locals. “It was really cool and ticked all the boxes,” he said. “There’s still a bit of friction around air travel but the joy of being in new places is still there.”

As a result, Italy is currently celebrating a record-smashing 316,880 Australians visiting during 2023, the highest number in a single year since records began. And there seems to be no end in sight to its increasing popularity, turbocharged by the hit new Netflix series Ripley, filmed in Italy, the Sicily season of White Lotus and the last James Bond movie No Time To Die, with its final shot along the panoramic Torre dei Crivi.

“I was recently at a roadshow which visited Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane and I asked agents about what a great year we were having, and they said bookings were continuing to grow,” said Emanuele Attanasio, country manager, Italian National Tourist Board Australia & New Zealand. “There was no end in sight.

“I think a lot of Australians went to Italy a few years ago, and ticked off boxes like Rome and Florence and Venice, but then realised there was so much more to Italy, and that it’s so easy to get around, with a great rail system. So now they’re returning to visit Milan and the lakes and the Amalfi Coast, and immerse themselves in the culture, and visit friends and family.”

That’s certainly true for Sydneysider Fabio Vivan, 47, who’s also just back from visiting Milan and Bologna and is already planning his next trip. “I love to visit my family and my friends there and I love the culture,” hairdresser Vivan said. “The climate is good and the people are happy and it’s easy to travel anywhere around Europe.”

This boom in travel is being seen as a new golden age, with the bounce back in global capacity and new capacity announcements from airlines like Jetstar, Singapore Airlines, China Southern and Delta.

The airlines and airports with the highest number of aircraft seats available are also the ones seeing the best rates for passengers. As well as those top five destination fare falls, ticket prices to the UK have dropped by 18 per cent, to China by 17 per cent and to Singapore by 15 per cent.

But some things have changed, Walley says. Now there are fewer flights out of Sydney to the east coast of the US, with some American airlines and Virgin Australia axing its routes.

“Also, the type of aircraft being used has changed, from all the double-decker A380s pre-COVID to the 787s that are far more fuel-efficient, and cheaper, but don’t carry as many people,” Walley said. “After the pandemic, we saw fares going sky-high, but now they’re coming down as we’re seeing more capacity.

“People are now travelling as frequently as they did pre-pandemic, but they’re staying for longer, in both leisure and business travel, or a combination of both, and looking for immersive experiences.”