As the summer season creeps in and we begin to plan our Christmas and New Years festivities, more and more Aussies are giving foreign travel the cold-shoulder in favour of home destinations.
The decline in the Australian dollar – which has fallen close to 25 percent against the US dollar since mid-2014 – is adding to the appeal of affordable local travel over popular overseas ports like Bali and Thailand.
Official figures for the month of August show that almost 620,000 international tourists arrived on Australian shores, a rise of 2 percent, while the number of Aussies heading overseas dipped by around 1 percent.
The Australian dollar is being pressured down by a variety of factors, but principally the falling commodity prices that have hampered the nation’s terms of trade. Economists agree that the Australian economy is transitioning off the heavy reliance of mining and diversifying toward sectors such as tourism – which employs over 500,000 Australians and generates over $40 billion dollars annually.
While the Aussie dollar has held up reasonably well against the Euro, hotspots closer to home including Indonesia, China, India and Vietnam now fetch on average 6 percent less in their currency than they did a year ago. Most dramatically of all, the dollar has seen a 10 percent reduction against the Thai baht.
Despite this fall, it’s still much cheaper to find accommodation and eat out in Southeast Asia than in Australia. But times are not as good as they used to be for Aussie travellers overseas, so this year might be the year to rediscover the beauty and diversity of home.
The dollar in your pocket is still the same dollar it was a year ago. There’s no long-haul flights, no visa applications, no language barrier, no awkward searches for reliable ATM’s and you have Internet whenever and wherever you go (perhaps not in the heart of the outback though!)
We suggest the Pacific Highway road trip in a 69 Chevy SS convertible on the way to the Byron Bay Blues festival, with a bunch of good friends and a spontaneous itinerary!