Australians have a golden opportunity to travel right now — and here’s the data to prove it
Aussies love to travel because of what they think it says about them, says demographer Bernard Salt — and his statistics show they now have a chance to say something pretty impressive.
National
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Travelling overseas has been an Australian rite of passage since the 1960s when London’s Earl’s Court was known as Kangaroo Valley. These days touring Australians are just as likely to be found in Bali or Los Angeles or a Mediterranean cruise.
There was a time when overseas travel was the preserve of the rich but cheap airfares opened overseas destinations to middle Australia.
Deep down, Australians are conscious of their distance from the rest of the world and equate exotic travel with success and sophistication. Aussies love nothing better than planning for, talking about and sharing photos of their most recent overseas trip.
But the coming of the coronavirus has changed this core element of the Australian way of life. Savings otherwise allocated to “a big trip OS” are now parked and some siphoned for home improvements.
And while such projects certainly fill a lockdown vacuum, they don’t fulfil the brief for time out, a change of scenery, the delivery of carefully curated Instagram moments projecting fun, success and worldliness.
What is required is a reimagination of an Australian holiday that is coronavirus safe and offers something new and unexpected.
But where to go? Some are doing a bit of a try-before-you-buy by hiring an Airbnb to experience the lifestyle, even to feel the serenity.
And if Airbnb listings are any guide there’s no shortage of destinations.
Between the end of July and the end of August the number of Airbnb properties listed in postcode 4870 (Cairns) jumped by 33, according to data accessed by Ripehouse Advisory. Excluding ski and university postcodes, this makes Cairns the number one destination for a local holiday.
These listings show Australians are as fixated as ever on traditional tropical, seaside and treechange destinations.
During August, Airbnb listings jumped by 30 properties in the Victorian goldfields town of Castlemaine (postcode 3461), by 27 in Western Australia’s lifestyle town of Busselton (6281), by six in South Australia’s Yankalilla, by eight on Tasmania’s St Helen’s (7216), and by seven in Alice Springs (0870). In the ACT the greatest increase was in the suburb of Phillip (postcode 2606).
Australia’s holiday idylls have existed in our hearts and minds since our childhood.
But now it’s time to rediscover, to see anew a place, a destination, a piece of pure Australiana that hasn’t stood still but which has evolved into something that has the capacity to engage the worldliest of travellers.
Why, I have heard that in many of these places they offer smashed avocado with crumbled feta at knockdown prices.
Who wouldn’t be up for a bit of rest and recuperation, for a bit of a reprieve from the lockdown madness, to support a local business, to help our fellow (small-business) Australians, doing it tough in the regions and in the heartland of this blessed spot, this Australia.
*Bernard Salt is a demographer.
Originally published as Australians have a golden opportunity to travel right now — and here’s the data to prove it