Budget Airlines Choking Domestic Tourism in Australia

Budget airlines to Asia are choking life out of Australia tourism. According to Holiday Planet, budget airlines have made it harder to sell Australia to domestic tourists. Locals are being lured by the cheap packages for Asian destinations.

Budget carriers like AirAsia and Jetstar are offering great deals for Asian destinations. This has made it hard to convince Australians to travel local destinations that are expensive in comparison.

Alan Dodson of Holiday Planet believe that it is becoming extemely difficult to convince locals especially family of four to travel domestically when you can get great deals of Asian destinations. Apart from budget airlines, strong Australian dollar has also made it difficult to sell domestic packages.

However not everyone agrees with Alan Dodson. Some believe budget airlines have open wide range of international markets to Australia. Carriers like AirAsia and Jetstar are bringing more tourists from China and Malaysia than domestic tourists flying overseas. Therefore it is not wise to blame budget airlines.

Today the domestic airfares in Australia are quite low. Once the dollar starts to decline, you may see rise in demand for domestic packages. While its true that as for now budget airlines are hurting domestic tourism, one can't ignore that the very same carriers are bringing millions of international tourists. Overall low cost carriers have done more good than harm to Aussie tourism.

Source - easydestination.net