The UK and Fiji are the top overseas holiday destinations for 2024
Australians are set to travel far and wide internationally in 2024 with Flight Centre bookings showing travellers are seeking out alternative holiday destinations.
Australians are set to travel far and wide in 2024 with cost-of-living pressures reducing discretionary income and elevated airfares not dampening the mood for international holidays.
The country’s largest travel agency, Flight Centre, crunched the numbers and found that the UK was the most booked overseas holiday destination for Australians in 2024 as many looked forward to a Euro summer.
Those chasing the sunshine were more likely to head to Fiji which was the second most popular destination as it continued to boom in the post-pandemic world of travel compared to fifth-place Bali.
The data from Flight Centre captures all forward bookings made by its clients, but notes that some destinations such as the UK are more likely to be booked further out than others.
Flight Centre chief executive Graham Turner told The Australian that the travel group has seen strong demand for the UK with travellers often required to book much further out than other destinations in a bid to secure more affordable airfares.
“Just the capacity alone, let alone the airfare prices, are a major stumbling block for the UK so it is surprising to see strong demand. But it’s certainly always a popular destination, but one people need to book well ahead just to get seats,” he said.
“For the UK you know you need to book three, four, five, six months ahead to get (seats). If you’re going in peak season like May, June, July to the UK you’ll need to book early regardless to get a seat and you’ll be paying fairly high prices.”
Fiji was very popular with travellers in 2023 with the Australian Bureau of Statistics reporting that 324,000 Australians took a holiday to the Pacific nation in the 10 months to October compared to 287,000 over the same period in 2019.
Mr Turner said Fiji had overtaken Bali as the most in-demand destination for those looking for a sunny holiday close to Australia with it offering value for money.
“Anecdotally we are hearing that (Bali) is fairly quiet compared to normal,” he said.
“Fiji since Covid has been popular with the family market. The main appeal with places like Fiji and Bali is the flights are reasonably priced and Fiji airfares were almost straight back to 2019 prices right after Covid finished.”
Japan was the third most booked holiday destination for Australians, with the country enjoying booming growth in recent year.
ABS data showed 61,000 Australians returned from a Japanese holiday in October – level with October 2019 and six times higher than a year ago.
Mr Turner said the country had much going for it with it seen as a safe destination offering plenty of variety and was in a similar time zone.
“Asia was fairly slow to come out of Covid. Places like Japan were seen as a safe destination and it has been very popular and anyone you talk to in tourism all say that it is back in a big way and very hard to get seats particularly out of Australia,” he said.
“It’s also the same time zone and obviously it’s a popular ski place too in winter, so it has everything going for it in terms of the driving market.”
The US is the fourth most booked destination with capacity largely returning between the two countries, while Italy, Thailand, New Zealand, Canada and Vietnam were also in the top 10 for holiday destinations in 2024.
Mr Turner said Flight Centre was optimistic that 2024 will be another strong year for travel with increasing capacity expected to meet demand in the market and help make travel cheaper for many.
“Higher airfares along with limited capacity on some of the routes are probably the two challenges to people travelling internationally,” he said.
“We believe that with the capacity increasing, airfares will almost inevitably come down, and that the European and North American summers next year will be quite strong in terms of bookings.”
Flight Centre’s top 20 international destinations for 2024:
1. UK
2. Fiji
3. Japan
4. USA
5. Indonesia (Bali)
6. Italy
7. Thailand
8. New Zealand
9. Canada
10. Vietnam
11. France
12. India
13. Greece
14. Singapore
15. Spain
16. The Philippines
17. Germany
18. South Africa
19. China
20. The Netherlands
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