The destination that’s bigger than ever for Australian travellers

Italy is bigger than ever for Australian travellers who have flocked to the country in greater numbers in June than they did for the same month before the pandemic broke.

The village of Varenna on Lake Como in northern Italy.

More Australians visited Italy in June than at the same time four years ago before the pandemic began, outdoing perennial holiday favourites such as Fiji, Japan and Singapore.

Bureau of Statistics data tracking overseas arrivals and departures showed 32,740 Australians returned from short-term visits to Italy in June, up from 31,120 in 2019.

Indonesia maintained its position as our top holiday destination with almost as many Aussies holidaying in Bali as in 2019, followed by New Zealand, the UK, US and Thailand.

The data showed trips across the Tasman continued to lag well behind pre-pandemic levels while US holidays were also well down on 2019 at 49,330 compared with 86,380.

Overall, the number of Australians heading abroad for short-term trips in June crept over one million to reach 96 per cent of pre-Covid figures, while international visitors down under continued their slow recovery at 82 per cent.

The important Chinese market was at 46 per cent of 2019 levels in June, to be Australia’s fourth biggest source of foreign tourists after NZ, the US and Singapore.

The strength of the demand for Italy even came as a surprise to travel agents who were experiencing plenty of interest in other European destinations.

Italy’s history, architecture, food and scenery have made the country one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world. Picture: Getty Images

Australian Federation of Travel Agents chief executive Dean Long said the numbers for Italy were higher than expected, which was “really good news” for the country.

“It suggests all those people travelling to Europe are choosing to spend most of their time in Italy ahead of other northern summer hot spots like Greece and Croatia,” Mr Long said.

“It also shows we’re moving away from those more established destinations as we look to make our dollar stretch a bit further.”

Adding to Italy’s allure was good connectivity as with Qantas was conducting non-stop flights into Rome from Perth, while airlines such as Qatar and Singapore were offering good capacity.

“I think Italy at the moment has a lot going for it,” Mr Long said.

“It’s not on the front page with any natural disaster and there’s some really good rates in terms of getting there – they’re one of the more competitive destinations because they haven’t got business travel pushing up those record high airfares.”

Intrepid Travel chief executive James Thornton said that last year many Australians did not have the confidence to book trips in the European summer but social media posts from British and American friends convinced them to do so.

“Also people had been saving money for bucket list experiences that they had not had the chance to do,” Mr Thornton said.

“That in part is what has driven the demand into Europe this (northern) summer and into the 2024 northern summer.”

The extraordinary rush to visit Italy was in contrast to the number of Australians visiting the US, which was at 57 per cent of 2019 figures.

Mr Long said that was likely to be due to the poor exchange rate, lack of airline capacity and the “been there, done that” factor.

“It’s a destination a lot of people visited before the pandemic, and the supply has been slow to ramp up, so that’s had an impact,” he said.

“We’re also seeing in that middle market, the mortgage belt that would’ve previously contributed to those high numbers going to the west coast for a holiday, we’ve seen that come off.”

Planned capacity increases by Air Canada and United Airlines in coming months were likely to help “close the gap”, he said.