Customs strikes, bikie-related murders, and difficult security checks haven’t stopped Australians seeing the world – and apparently we do it more affluently than any other tourists.
Australians have been named as the world’s biggest spenders abroad, in Visa’s Global Travel Intentions Survey. We dish out (or chock up debts of) $3714.75 on average each trip, more than doubling the global average of $1504.62. And it seems we favor Elizabeth over Barack, as the U.K remains the most common destination, with 30% saying they are likely to visit in the next two years, compared with only 26% prefer to spend their hard-earned bones on the American Dream.
Because of the strong Aussie dollar, were getting ink (on our passports that is) like never before, however some areas of locally based tourism is struggling as a result. Although Australians choose Europe over Uluru, foreign travelers are still braving the snakes, spiders, and Kyle Sandilands, to see Australia, be it a slightly different demographic of visitors than previous years. The new beast that is the Chinese middleclass, is slowly replacing Pommy backpackers as the main dudes struggling to hold maps in the windy CBD. Around 359,000 Chinese tourists landed in NSW last year grabbing a casual 12.2 million nights worth of zzzs, and the government hopes to have 1.1 million (yearly) by 2019.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Australia even more than that tax-evading phoney on the shrimp ad’s. But with the Government slapping taxes on booz and smokes like its their answer to all thats wrong in the world, its easy to see why people are stretching their money further overseas, while catching some cool sites along the way. Plus, ‘leaving, on a jet plane’ has a better ring to it than, ‘heading up to the Goldie in my van.’
