Australians love to travel. We always have – and even in the face of the cost-of-living crisis, many people are deciding travel is not something they’re willing to forgo. The annual Skyscanner Travel Trends report has found that 35% of respondents have budgeted to spend more on their holidays in 2024 than 2023. And 75% plan to take the same – or more – overseas trips in 2024 compared with this year.
These findings echo wider recent financial analysis. Research from Allianz Australia this year found that while Australians are spending less on takeaway food, coffee and clothes, we’re still splashing out on the things we really love and enjoy, such as our favourite hobbies – even if they are expensive. Further research from CommBank iQ found Australians are still willing to pay for travel amid a changing economy, especially as many of us try to catch up on pandemic-scuppered plans.
Economists say it makes sense that we’re still spending on travel: in tough economic times, we may be willing to give up the things we can do without, but we prioritise the things that bring us joy. And nothing packs more joy than the thought of our next overseas trip.
So exactly how are Australians fitting travel into their budgets, and where will we be heading next year? Here’s what Skyscanner found. (And given it searches more than 800 billion fares every day, we’d say it is perfectly placed to shine a light on the biggest travel trends for 2024.)
How Australians are making travel affordable
The cost-of-living crisis hasn’t quashed our desire to travel, but it has made us think harder about how we spend our dollars.
Skyscanner found that 42% of Australian travellers say the cost of flights is the biggest factor that determines their choice of destination, a figure significantly higher than the global percentage of travellers who say the same (30%). So it’s no surprise that many of us are looking closer to home. Search volumes for destinations in China, Japan, Thailand, Taiwan, New Caledonia, the Philippines and Vietnam – places we can fly to relatively cheaply – have increased the most dramatically.
The cost of hotels is the second biggest factor in determining a holiday destination.
The travel hacks that are getting us there
We’re getting more flexible with where we go – and better at sniffing out a good deal.
“While cost of living remains top of mind, our money-saving tools continue to rise in popularity,” says Jarrod Kris, Skyscanner travel expert. Skyscanner’s Everywhere search, which shows prices from the lowest to the highest from a specific airport to any global destination, is the top search destination for travellers globally this year, Kris says.
And that’s not the only way to bag a bargain in 2024. Skyscanner has also created a savings generator, which crunches data to find you the cheapest time to fly on some of Australia’s favourite routes. Need to get away this December and January? It will show you the cheapest weeks of the summer holidays to travel, as well as revealing the cheapest day of the week to fly. You can also use the tool to look up the average monthly fares of the most popular destinations and get guidance on the average fare for particular routes.
You can also set up price alerts, so when there’s a good deal going you can swoop right in.
The destinations you can travel to for less
While you may have heard that the Covid rebound has pushed airfares up, there are actually some routes on which fares are falling.
Skyscanner has been tracking the routes from Australia on which fares have dropped the most over the past 12 months. Topping the list are flights to Auckland, which have fallen by a cool 35%. In second and third place are flights to Apia in Samoa and Jakarta in Indonesia, which have dropped by 23% and 16% respectively. It’s also getting cheaper to travel to Seoul in South Korea, Taipei in Taiwan, and Denpasar (AKA the gateway airport to Bali). Further afield, there have also been drops in fares to Nairobi, Paris and Los Angeles.
As for accommodation, Asia is also home to some of the globe’s best value five-star stays. You can sleep in style for an average of just $158 per night in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, $181 per night in Hoi An, Vietnam, and $227 per night in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
So you really can still holiday without breaking the bank – you just need the right intel and a good search engine on your side.
Find your next holiday destination with the help of Skyscanner.
