It looks like the best place for vacation, if you’re Australian, is anywhere else. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, outbound travel surged from 2.1 million a year to 6.8 million a year over the past 20 years. For the 12 months ending last June, 6.8 million overseas trips originated in Australia. Two decades earlier, it was only 2.1 million. At today’s levels, there are 31 overseas trips made per 100 Australians.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports:
The ABS says the unprecedented increase is due to a combination of factors including more affordable travel and accommodation, partly due to the strength of the Australian dollar, and increasing competition between airlines.
What’s really interesting is that Australians are leaving the homeland for fun rather than profit: leisure travel was good for 82 percent of overseas trips.
So, if you’re Australian, where do you go? Well, New Zealand. The country’s neighbor attracted 1.1 million Australians.
[photo by Pascal Vuylsteker via Flickr]