If you thought Aussies could invade Europe every summer without them doing the same here, you are sorely mistaken, my friend.
In a surprising (but not that surprising) turn of events, the number of European visitors to Aus is increasing by up to 20 per cent per year.
And as the temperatures in Europe drop, the Expedia group has done some digging and revealed the multi-generational travel habits from Australia’s top three European visitor markets in the form of the Expedia Media Solutions Research: European Multi-Generational Travel Trends report.
Europeans are booking holidays down under and German travellers lead this trend with a 20 per cent increase from 2016 to 2017.
This is followed by French travellers at 10 per cent growth while demand from Brits venturing to Australia’s shores increased by five per cent year-on-year.
See? You’re not the only one who can take a 26-hour plane ride to eat your weight in delicious food (in between exploring, of course).
But whilst Aussie’s fave cities are Paris, London and Berlin, European travellers are expanding their horizons more in the land of Aus.
It’s definitely no surprise that Australia’s major cities topped the list of destinations visited by these travellers, but demand for destinations outside the major tourist areas actually experienced the steepest growth.
Lesser known destinations, like Townsville, the Great Ocean Road, Regional North Queensland (such as Mackay and Daintree) and the Coral Coast all experienced 20-30 per cent growth, according to separate Expedia research.
It also found that the majority of European travellers often opt for “off the beaten path” locations or tips from friendly locals recommending a beach other than Bondi and why Sydney nightlife is a giant waste of time. Who knew?
Drew Bowering, senior director of market management at Expedia group, said that this is only a growing market for Aussie tourism.
“We know Europeans are passionate about travel. British, French and German travellers injected $5.4 billion into the Australian economy for the 12 months ending March 2017 and our data shows they tend to take more trips and stay longer than other travellers,” he said.
Although Europeans have been travelling to Australia for a ton of years now, technological developments have led to specific differences in how Europe’s Generation Z (Age 18-23), Millennials (Age 24-35), Generation X (36-55) and Boomers (Age 55+) research, plan and book travel differently to their counterparts.
Here are two of the top trends:
Online Travel Agents are being used the most for travel planning and booking
Online Travel Agents (OTAs) and search engines have emerged as the two top online planning and booking resources when Europeans plan their travel.
Across all generations, almost half of Europeans use search engines and OTAs, like Expedia, for planning travel.
When it comes to booking trips, OTAs are also the most popular platform – over half of Gen Z, Millennials and Gen X used an OTA to book their last trip.
European travellers prioritise holiday experiences over hotel deals and special offers
Price is more important for younger generations with around 80 per cent of Gen Z ranking budget as a primary factor in their research and booking. In contrast, just over 50 per cent of Boomers cited budget as a primary consideration when planning their trips.
Overall, 70 per cent across all generations cited hotel deals as a top consideration for them, with Expedia data revealing that over half of its inbound demand to Australia was made on promotional offers.
