The other side of the high prices.
Small towns will go to the wall...
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Petrol hikes hit tourism hard: survey
April 28, 2006 - 3:14PM
Soaring petrol prices continue to severely impact on Australians' travel plans, starving the domestic travel industry of millions of dollars, a new survey shows.
Tourism website totaltravel.com found four in five Australians have changed their travel plans because of high fuel prices.
A National Visitor Survey released last month reported that Australians took 69.9 million overnight stays in 2005, down six per cent on 2004, while holiday vehicle trips over the same period fell by eight per cent.
Tourism Transport
Forum Australia managing director Christopher Brown said the figures showed the harm high fuel prices were having on the multi-billion dollar domestic tourism industry.
Mr Brown called on state governments to use the additional GST revenue from higher petrol prices to boost their tourist marketing budgets.
"State governments have to stop shedding crocodile tears over petrol prices," he said.
"They have to fight to boost demand and encourage people to ... have a holiday in Australia."
The totaltravel survey was carried out in April including the crucial
Easter school holiday period when prices reached record levels around Australia.
During the period surveyed, unleaded petrol prices in the major cities rose to around $1.40 a litre and up to 20 cents or more higher in regional areas.
The survey of 2,000 respondents found 43 per cent planned to cut back their travel plans, 38 per cent would cancel their travel plans and 19 per cent said it had no impact.
Mr Brown said some regional destinations served by low cost airfares, like the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Tasmania and others, have done
well.
"But if you are in the Hunter Valley, the south coast of NSW, parts of WA and other areas where people traditionally pack their car and go on holidays, it has become a very expensive thing to do," he said.
"It's hurting regional Australia big time.
"There are 250,000 people in regional Australia employed in the tourism industry and every premier can start sending letters of apology saying why they are abandoning their responsibility to promote the economy and their jobs."
And the high fuel prices could start hurting Australians travelling overseas.
Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation executive chairman Peter Harbison warned that world passenger demand could slow.
"The growing oil price crisis sees the express train of demand growth coming into a lake of treacle as consumer demand slows while fares rise," he said.
"The express train is not yet stopped, but the slowing becomes unavoidable.
"This treacle effect is the biggest short-term threat to airline profitability worldwide."
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