Aussies won’t give up travel despite cost-of-living crisis

Travel has become a ‘non-negotiable’ with new data showing more than 70 per cent of people are choosing to travel in the upcoming school holiday period.

Figures from the Tourism and Transport Forum show only about a quarter of the 1500 Australians surveyed are not travelling over the spring holidays.

Travel has become a “non-negotiable” for Australians who are refusing to give up time away from home even in a cost-of-living crisis, with new data showing more than 70 per cent of people are choosing to travel in the upcoming school holiday period.

Despite persistently high interest rates that are set to continue into early next year, figures from the Tourism and Transport Forum show only about a quarter of the 1500 Australians surveyed are not travelling over the spring holidays.

More than 30 per cent are travelling within their own state, 25 per cent are going interstate and 13 per cent are travelling ­internationally.

Japan remains the most popular overseas travel destination, followed by Europe, Indonesia, New Zealand, the US and Britain.

TTF chief executive Margy Osmond said travelling had become similar to the “lipstick index”, a term used to describe increased sales of cosmetics during the early 2000s recession.

“Back then, when people couldn’t afford anything else, they would go out and buy themselves a small luxury. And for longer than I can remember, that stayed at the top of people’s discretionary spend,” she said.

“What’s now happened, and I think this is absolutely the product of Covid, is that people have decided the holiday is non-negotiable, that it is at the top of their discretionary spend list.

“So after they paid the mortgage and the rent and other things, the one thing that they will not be deviated from is taking a holiday.”

However, the cost of living crisis was shortening the average holiday to seven days or less and spending to $5000 or less.

A quarter of survey respondents say that interest rates, followed by grocery prices, rank at the top of the contributors to financial strain.

More than half say cost of living pressures are impacting their travel plans, though that number is slightly down on survey results ahead of the winter holiday break.

Despite these pressures, 25 per cent say travel is at the top of their discretionary spend, followed by 20 per cent indicating cosmetic care is most important.

While the figures captured a boom in New Zealanders travelling to Australia at a rate surpassing pre-Covid levels, Ms Osmond said the tourism industry was still suffering from the fallout of the pandemic.

“There’s been some very significant recovery, but we’re still only sitting at like 84 per cent of inbound international travellers compared to pre-Covid,” she said.

“Australians might be travelling again but without the international the industry can’t recover. So from our point of view, it’s still all about aviation capacity. It’s about winning back the China market.”

Ms Osmond also pointed to figures that showed 20 per cent of people are travelling with their pets, which she said was probably another effect of the pandemic, when many people bought animals while working from home.