Aussies prefer to buy a new TV than take a holiday
The Federal Government has committed to spending $200,000 on a new study to find out why Australians are spending more money on consumer goods, including plasma TVs and sound systems than on domestic holidays.
Federal Tourism Minister Fran Bailey said a change in Australian spending habits had caused a sharp fall in domestic tourism in the past 12 months, creating major problems for most states, but particularly for NSW and South Australia.
Minister Bailey is asking Tourism Research Australia to investigate the reasons for the spending and comsumer behaviour changes, adding that she will write to State Tourism Ministers this week seeking extra funding for the research, which is due to start before the end of the year, saying, “If we are going to be successful in our domestic tourism we have to address why consumer spending patterns have changed.”
Tourism Research Australia recently reported that the number of domestic overnight trips was down by 7%, but the number of Australians heading overseas had risen by 7% and that while tourism in Victoria remained strong, other states were hurting, with 23.5 million overnight trips for the year to March, 2 million fewer than the previous year, representing an 8% decline in New South Wales.
South Australia had 610,000 fewer overnight trip, 5 million fewer than the previous year, an 11% decline.
The Report says the reasons for the domestic decline, include that Australians are spending more of their income on luxury consumer goods with more Australians were travelling overseas to visit friends and relatives.
Defending the Federal Government’s international “So where the bloody hell are you?” marketing campaign Ms Bailey said that Australia would not see an increase in tourist numbers as a result of the campaign until the middle of 2007.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics the number of international tourists arriving in August compared to July fell by 0.5% to 444,400 movements with the seasonally adjusted estimates following a decline of 2.5% in July and an increase of 3.3% in June.
The Mole hopes that the Aussie domestic, inbound and outbound industry will be included in this research. In the meantime, if you would like to offer your comments on this very serious issues, please click on the COMMENTS button below. Let’s make our voice heard!
Report by The Mole
John Alwyn-Jones
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