Recent figures from leading travel website, TakeABreak.com.au, support the trend that Australians are choosing to stay closer to home this year and putting those international holidays on hold.
Pointing to this is firstly the year on year increase in bookings on the site which specialises in boutique accommodation including B&Bs, farmstays, guest houses, campgrounds and hotels in Australia. In December bookings increased by 38%, followed in January with another jump of 13% over the previous 12 months.
"The majority of our bookings are coming from holiday homes right now," says TakeABreak.com.au CEO, Craig Davis. "In the last two months we have seen over a 20% increase in bookings in this category most likely due to the fact that they provide extremely good value on a per person per night basis. They also allow visitors to contain costs by self-catering."
Looking at geography, all states experienced an increase in bookings on the site but South Australia is the big winner right now showing a year on year increase to December of 33%. The most popular locations are the Fleurieu Peninsula, Yorke Peninsula - Marion Bay, Glenelg and Tanunda in the Barossa Valley. The next closest state was WA with 23.7% and then Victoria at 19.75%.
In all the states about 78% of the visitation was intra-state - this figure has remained consistent.
The length of stay year on year has remained mostly unchanged with an average of 4.4 room nights but the cost per night has increased showing greater yield for the operators of the properties - a welcome economic boost.
TakeABreak.com.au provides specialist categories to help visitors to the site refine and target their searches. “Pet-friendly” remains the highest searched category at around 39% of all searches on the site. “Family-friendly” also remains strong at 16% of the searches followed by couples looking for romantic getaways - around 10%. The biggest change was the drop in searches for luxury travel, possibly reflecting the mood of the economy.
In their most recent report, Hitwise, leading supplier of online competitive information, ranked TakeABreak.com.au #8 in Australia across all "Destination and Accommodation" websites. The site also ranked 8th by visits in the same category across 7,912 websites that were ranked. This placed them ahead of other popular sites such as australia.com and ninemsn.com.au.
