The travel bug bites: ‘I’ve only got 20 decent summers left’

After years of pandemic-restricted movement worldwide, travel is back with a vengeance. The past three months have been the busiest in two years, says Michelle Rheinberger, from boutique travel company Adventum Travel. Speaking on the latest episode of Good Weekend Talks, Rheinberger says the travel traffic is flowing in both directions, and she believes it’s only going to get busier as we move into the Australian summer.

“In June, there were 730,000 arrivals into Australia,” says Rheinberger, “which was up 80,000 on the month before. And departures were 900,000, which was a month-on-month rise of 221,000.”

Where are Australians going, and what are we doing? “I definitely think people are doing shorter, more experience-based journeys,” says Rheinberger, “rather than the 55-countries-in-three-weeks kind of thing, ticking the names off the list.”

This may be because we’re more grateful for the privilege of going anywhere, and really want to soak it in. “People are going to a villa for a week in Tuscany, as opposed to having two nights in Tuscany on their way to Rome, on their way to somewhere else. Immersion is probably the word: really feeling you understand what a true Croatian village is like, or how living like a true New Yorker feels.”

Those coming here from overseas, meanwhile, are looking for authentic experiences. And local operators are hoping not only that international tourists will come, but that Australians, having discovered their own backyard, will choose to swell domestic tourism numbers.

Rheinberger, who moved to the NSW country town of Millthorpe during the pandemic, says residents can sometimes be “a bit funny, like, ‘God, I can’t get a coffee this morning because of all these visitors.’ But I think generally, people understand that to have these services – whether it’s a cellar door, good coffee, or a little deli – you do need someone to be able to support them.”

The one thing that seems unlikely is that any disaster, save another global catastrophe, will halt our return to travel. Given rising interest rates and economic constraints, “people might do the one bucket-list trip and then really consider, ‘Is this sustainable or not for the future?’” says Rheinberger. “But interestingly enough, a client who recently turned 50 said to me the other day: ‘Do you realise I’ve only got 20 decent summers left?’ People are desperate to get out there.”

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