The Minister for Tourism, Martin Ferguson AM MP says Tourism Research Australia's International Visitors in Australia - December Quarter 2008, confirms that 2008 produced mixed results for Australia's tourism industry, showing Australians took fewer domestic trips but spent more during their travels.
Domestic tourism suffered last year due to the combined affect of a strong Australian dollar, which made outbound travel more affordable for Australians, and high domestic fuel prices.
Minister Ferguson said: "The findings of this report will not come as a surprise to the Australian tourism industry and confirm the challenging set of circumstances which impacted on domestic travel last year.
"After facing tough competition from the outbound sector for most of the year we then saw consumer confidence and willingness to travel take a dent as the global economic crisis arose.
"The global recession's impact upon tourism will continue to be an international global phenomenon, however we know Australians are avid travellers and we want to ensure that taking a domestic trip is part of their 2009 holiday plans.
"Tourism Australia has several initiatives in place to stimulate domestic tourism this year, including the soon-to-be-launched No Leave No Life campaign which will help Australians unlock their stockpiled leave and take a holiday in Australia.
"Unlocking even a small portion of the 123 million days of accrued leave and turning it into a domestic Australian holiday will make a very important contribution to our tourism industry and help support the almost 500,000 Australians who are directly employed in this important industry."
Tourism Research Australia's report shows Australians took less overnight trips (down 4 per cent compared to 2007) throughout 2008 and there was also a drop in the number of day trips. However, the economic contribution of domestic travel rose by 1.4 per cent to $64.8 billion for the year.
The Travel by Australians, December 2008 Quarter report is available from Tourism Research Australia and can be downloaded at www.tra.australia.com or email tra@tourism.australia.com.