Starting in early November, Australian travel bans began to be lifted. With these restrictions amending for the first time in almost 2 years and vaccination rates high, we wondered how Australians are feeling about travel and the upcoming holidays? Are Australians eager to leave the country they’ve resided in since the start of the pandemic or are new variants keeping them closer to home? Using the PureSpectrum Insights Platform, we polled Australians to gauge their current sentiments about holiday celebrations.
Holiday Celebrations
74% of Australians we polled say that they will be celebrating the upcoming holidays with people outside of their household. But it seems that many of these celebrations will require minimal travel. 46% of Australians say they are not planning to travel at all for the holiday season. And another 46% say that they plan to travel by car. Only 15% of Australians say they will be flying in a plane by the end of the year.
Overall, it looks like holiday gatherings will remain smaller this year. Many Australians seem to still avoid crowds of more than 50 people, even if they are outdoors. Only about a quarter of respondents said they plan to attend large indoor gatherings and a third may celebrate with large groups outdoors.
Trust in Travel
For those Australians that are planning to leave home this holiday, over half plan to stay with family and friends. An almost equal number will be checking into a hotel or motel. Generally, Australians trust that hotels are participating in the necessary COVID-19 safety precautions. Only 11% of respondents believe that hotels are not doing enough to protect travelers but 34% feel unsure.
When asked a similar question about airline COVID-19 safety measures, Australians are slightly less trusting. While 11% of respondents also don’t feel airlines are doing enough to keep passengers safe, nearly 40% of respondents are unsure. When using the PureSpectrum Insights Platform to filter responses by gender, it is revealed that men currently trust air travel more than women do.
Source: PureSpectrum Insights Platform
International Relations
As previously stated, most Australians will be staying within the countries borders this holiday season. Only 9% of respondents said they are planning to travel internationally before the end of 2021. When asked to rate their comfort levels in traveling internationally, only a quarter of respondents said they feel comfortable leaving their country.
But Australians seem somewhat hopeful that borders will continue to open and travel will become safer. 19% say they will travel internationally within the next 6 months and 23% say they are waiting to see if more countries open borders before booking travel.
When asked if people should be required to be vaccinated for COVID-19 to be able to travel internationally, 83% of Australians said yes. This percentage changes however when using the PureSpectrum Insights Platform to filter by vaccination status. Respondents that are not vaccinated are less likely to feel that it is critical for travel.
Source: PureSpectrum Insights Platform
No matter where they live, travelers have a lot on their minds this holiday season. With the new Omnicron variant making headlines, the world is waiting and watching. The travel industry should continue to promote and advertise COVID-19 safety precautions and practices. Here’s to safe and more abundant international travel in 2022.
Curious to dive deeper into our data set? Email Anthony O’Brein anthony@purespectrum.com
Want to learn more about running your own survey? See how easy it is on our Insights Platform.
Methodology
PureSpectrum interviewed 151 online respondents on December 2, 2021, using the PureSpectrum Insights Platform. The platform is integrated with the PureSpectrum Marketplace which combines proprietary measurement tools and third-party data validation to quickly collect high-quality insights. The study was fielded in less than 20 minutes and was cleaned and ready for analysis in under an hour. We targeted respondents within Australia and consisted of a general population audience of 18+ years old. This study uses a 95% confidence level to examine the data.