Melbourne is first in domestic tourism

Melbourne emerged as Australia's most popular destination for domestic travellers in 2010 and has taken the mantle from Sydney, which is battling perceptions it is too expensive, a survey says.

The 2010 Hotel Price Index (HPI) put the Victorian capital on top last year, with Sydney dropping to second place, Gold Coast third and Cairns fourth.Adelaide rose three places to fifth, ahead of Perth, Brisbane and Port Douglas.Darwin and Canberra rounded out the top 10.

Hotels.com vice president for Asia-Pacific Johan Svanstrom said domestic travellers had voted with their wallets, given average hotel prices rose 16 per cent in Sydney last year to $168 a night.By comparison, average hotel prices in Melbourne were broadly unchanged at $146 per night.

"What helped Melbourne scoot up to No.1 over the course of last year was the particularly fast rise in prices in Sydney," Mr Svanstrom said on Monday."Clearly, when prices go to very high levels and are perceived to be high, people start looking elsewhere."

The news was not all bleak for Sydney, which retained its clear lead in terms of the favourite Australian destination for overseas visitors, ahead of Melbourne and Cairns.Mr Svanstrom said talk show host Oprah Winfrey's recent visit was "ridiculously" positive for Australia.

While it would give the local tourism industry a boost, he cautioned that the impact was unlikely to be long term."Over this period say since last summer and probably spilling into now, you definitely have had a positive affect," Mr Svanstrom said.

"How long that lasts, I think you need to replace that with something else at some point."The HPI eight-year-old survey is based bookings made on the Hotels.com website and prices paid by customers and the sample size covers about 110,000 properties in 18,000 locations around the world.

Source = news.ninemsn.com.au