2020 Oz Travel Index shows Australians are ‘getting back out there’
Australian travel technology company TripTech reveals important data for recovering tourism industry
Australians love to travel and despite remaining restrictions and slowly returning domestic flights, a new and innovative travel index is outlining the where and how Australians are returning to travel with easing coronavirus enforced restrictions and starting school holidays.
TripTech, a travel technology company operating across Australia & NZ, uses its suite of A/NZ travel apps to generate real-time data from the activities of Australian and Kiwi road travellers.
The real-time domestic tourism data enables TripTech to build comprehensive dashboards and reports filled with rich information around actual traveller movement and behaviour. This is now informing and inspiring our tourism industry and authorities with actionable insights.
TripTech’s launched Independent Road Travel Index shows Australians are again getting back out there. Whilst many still aspire to travel and soon holiday, the Independent Road Travel Index is identifying it remains a slow and winding road back for Australian tourism and travel!
The Independent Road Travel Index allows touring Australians, tourism officials and governments to determine how our tourism industry is ‘travelling’ in the COVID-economy.
Senior Tourism leader and TripTech CEO Nick Baker said: “This Road Travel Index provides realistic signposts around how Australians are making the ‘return to travel’ – and it is by road.”
“TripTech’s apps provide practical consumer travel tools for pre-booking, in-trip information gathering and allowing users to best experience our great regions when on the road. But they also drive analysis and insight opportunities of Australians undertaking leisure road trips that we believe can even more effectively inform industry and governments,” Mr Baker said.
The Index’s inaugural release provides important insights into the present state of our slowly recovering tourism and travel industry. The Road Travel Index by TripTech found:
Australians are getting out there again - but it’s not like 2019 – user data from late June 2020 compared to 12 months prior, shows Australians travelling around 60 per cent less. But as travel restrictions continue to ease, including some state borders, road travel trends are rising, with month on month growth of 15 per cent and climbing.
Leading road trip states – user data from TripTech’s apps identified South Australia as the strongest state for getting back on the road, followed by Victoria and New South Wales. The Northern Territory was the lowest in comparative terms compared to 2019.
Regional travel hot spots – the top five Australian regional travel hot spots during June were (in order) Murray East and the Eyre Peninsula (both South Australia), Victoria’s High Country and Yarra Valley, followed by regions through Southern New South Wales.
Via leading States in the Index the top visited regions were:
State Top Regional visited locations (Source: IRTI) South Australia Murray East, Eyre Peninsula Victoria High Country, Upper Yarra, Central Highlands New South Wales Southern NSW (Country & Outback) Queensland Whitsundays, Mackay, Tropical North Queensland
Overnight Stays and Road Trips – the Index states overnight stays are only slowly recovering – down a significant 80 percent for the past four weeks (to 21 June 2020) compared to 2019. But the Index data also shows road travel levels is now increasing.
TripTech app usage – Users of TripTech’s most popular consumer travel apps have more than doubled in the last two months and the growth trajectory continues with new downloads surpassing 2019 figures every week through June 2020. Travel normality, at least for on-the-road and intrastate drive activity, is returning.
“Three-quarters of domestic tourism across Australia was previously done by car, caravan or campervan. The Independent Road Travel Index has identified road holiday travel will soon reach, then pass this level based on the exciting volumes we’re seeing,” said Nick Baker.
“The road trip is clearly back in vogue and this Index can closely track the progress of this new normal in Australian travel as school holidays begin.”
Mr Baker said the Index provides immediacy to critical insights, travel patterns and how the Australian tourism landscape is also being dramatically re-shaped with the loss of international visitors and still constrained interstate travel.
TripTech’s Independent Road Trip Index maps in real-time the intrastate and interstate tourism market. Future changes such as remaining State and Territory border re-openings and more domestic flights will be monitored for cause and effect of visitor volumes and activity.
Mr Baker said the Index would also be of value to Councils as well as State and regional tourism bodies needing to respond to changing travel behaviours and COVID-clean tourism drivers.
