Aussies head overseas in growing numbers in the past year

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SYDNEY: The number of Aus­tralians travelling overseas jumped 10 per cent in the past year, with official figures show­ing outbound trips booming as the local currency soared.

Australian Bureau of Sta­tistics figures recorded Aus­tralians went on 7.44 million short-term overseas visits over the 2010-11 fiscal year as the Aussie dollar hit historic highs – an increase of 9.9 per cent on 2009-10.

Chief of industry body Tour­ism and Transport Forum, John Lee, said Australians were happy to take advantage of the strong currency, which had soared around 30 per cent over the past year and was well above the greenback. Lee said Australian travellers were heading to resorts and beaches, with the number of journeys to Indonesia jumping by 153,000 over the year, and to the United States rising by 116,000.

“A lot of it is what we would term as cultural tourism, it’s about pleasure tourism,” he told AFP.

“It’s people enjoying Viet­nam, Thailand, Indonesia.” The Aussie dollar has been strengthening against the greenback since last year on the back of Australia’s mining boom, and hit its highest level against the US currency since its 1983 float of 110.62 US cents in late July.

In terms of inbound tourism, arrivals from Asia were also higher with those from China up 26.8 per cent over the 2010-11 financial year, Lee said.

Growth in arrivals from Ma­laysia was 13.7 per cent, while visits from Indonesia were up 12.4 per cent and India 11.3 per cent higher.

Meanwhile, arrivals from those regions under debt pres­sure were lower, with visits from the United States down 4.7 per cent, while those from Britain dropped 3.1 per cent and Ireland was down 10.2 per cent. — AFP