Marc:
So, Sally, we're both savvy social media users.
Sally:
Debatable, but sure.
Marc:
Whatever, we get there in the end. And if you do spend any time on Instagram, you'll see lots of travel stuff. So how are people paying for all this?
Sally:
Yeah, it seems like it's happening more and more, maybe it's the algorithm, who knows, right?
Marc:
Blame it all on the algorithm...
Sally:
I blame all of my life problems on Instagram, OK?
Marc:
We all have friends that like to travel in one way or the other, they like to pay for it in one way, and maybe use a specific online travel agent. So today, I'm spinning for a segue... Today, we are going to be delving into basically how Australians finance that travel and all the interesting little facts and figures which come out of that.
Sally:
Yeah, so there was a Roy Morgan Report last year that apparently Australians took 54 million holidays that year. That's a lot of money. So yeah, how do we afford it? So many Australians, like myself, our financial goals are based around travelling, whereas maybe a couple of generations ago might have been, you know, towards getting married or buying a house or like more tangible things. Whereas it seems like we're more interested in experiences now.
Marc:
That's right. Times are changing. So to help us understand more about this, we have find his very own travel editor, Steph Yip!
Sally:
So she is our in-house travel expert. So whenever we want the hottest flight deals, or, you know, some hacks for pretty much anywhere that you want to go around the world. She's our gal. So Steph, you're one of the travel experts at Finder. Can you give our listeners a picture of the average day in the life of Steph?
Stephanie:
Yeah, so I'm the travel editor at Finder. And our Wednesday includes me, finding and hunting all these beautiful flight hotel holiday package deals for myself a little bit, but mainly for our readers. So basically finding the best value holidays that you can get.
Marc:
I noticed that there so many deals and sales at the moment, which I guess we're going to touch on in a bit when we talk about trends. Yeah, but it definitely seems like there's so much if you want to travel.
Stephanie:
I don't know whether it's always been like this. But airlines love sending out sales, it's not a seasonal thing anymore. Every other week, an airline will put something out. So they might choose a different location, they might choose different travel dates that they are particularly trying to push, but they'll almost always have something going on.
Marc:
Okay, so today we're going to be diving into a recent report from Roy Morgan, which basically talks all about how much Australians spend on travel. So how much does the average Australian spend on travel each year?
Stephanie:
So the average Australian will talking about average Australian households, that's what the data states. So it's about $76 a week. And that's actually based on ABS household expenditure survey data. So that's $76 a week, but translated that becomes $3,952 per year. And this data's from 2015 to 2016. But that gives you a good ballpark of how much we're spending per year.
Marc:
Yeah, actually kind of like gels with my own.
Sally:
Yeah, that's what I was doing as well. Yeah, I think this is a bit of an interesting one, because I've already been on two international trips, which I wouldn't usually. But I definitely have spent more than that.
Stephanie:
Just on this year.
Sally:
And it seems like our financial goals as a whole becoming more travel based, and maybe even more so than previous generations. I know that myself included, but also a lot of my friends, like when we're talking about what we're saving up, it's almost always travel. So why do you think that is why younger people especially in Australia, you know, putting their money more towards their travels and say other things like property or, or, you know, clothes or other tangible things, food?
Stephanie:
Yeah, we're doing things a lot later in life. We're looking at our finances a lot later in life. So we're purchasing homes a lot later, we're renting a lot longer. We're staying with our parents for a lot longer. So our financial goals aren't exactly at that point where we want to start saving for a home, or one to start looking to have a family. So we're starting to look toward experiences first while we can before we make those financial decisions.
Sally:
Yeah, that's very interesting. I think Marc and I were talking about that and how, like doing an international trip once a year is like a must first. We were thinking about our parents when they were our age and what they were doing and they're finding actual goals. We will like, wall.
Marc:
Yeah, exactly. Like we are like, I'm like 20 x what my parents probably do. I think they went overseas like a couple times. Growing up, you know, I like to yeah.
Stephanie:
Exactly. And things are becoming a lot more accessible. These days, prices are a lot cheaper compared to our parents. There's a lot more competition out there. Like I said before, there was a dropping every other week right? Before probably was very seasonal, very occasional. And now there's so much in the market, that they need to drop their prices in order for them to be profitable. And when we see something that's a good deal when we see something that's cheap, how can we deny it right?
Sally:
So yeah, and how do you think that social media and FOMO, you know, come into play as well in terms of potentially encouraging us to travel more than previous generations?
Stephanie:
If you look at Skyscanner as Australia trends report that was from last year, they found that 73% of respondents said that word of mouth played a major role when deciding on the next destination. They also said that 1 in 3 so about 34% gain trip inspiration from social media, in general, and just about 5% said that social media is such a strong influence in their lives, that they use it for bragging reasons.
Sally:
Wow.
Marc:
I'm a social media, Maven,
Stephanie:
I've seen your Instagram, it's all full of food.
Marc:
Doesn't even surprise me the FOMO element because I stayed in my own life. And the social media element as well, like, you'll see some of the really well-known influencers tend to go to similar places like you see a lot of Bali and Indonesia.
Stephanie:
And you can see that recurring throughout different years, about two years back was a lot of Mediterranean last year and a bit of this year, it's a lot of Turkey. So once enough of those images start popping up on your feed, you kind of want to go you want to be part of it. You want those bragging rights as well to say I've done it. I've seen that place. I have that beautiful photo.
Marc:
Okay, so Steph, you've written a really interesting piece about how all these fun the holidays, maybe you can talk us through the different spending personalities, which is, I thought really interesting.
Stephanie:
Yeah, so I broke the article into four different spending personalities. Two of them are based on how we save for our travels. And the other two are how we spend while we're away. So the first two are the saver, bit self-explanatory, but it's somebody who actively saves to be able to afford their holiday, then there's a borrower and somebody who borrows money, perhaps it's through a personal loan, perhaps it's through maybe their parents, or with a credit card in order to afford the holiday break. The other two are how we spend when we're on holidays. There's the low cost. So that's a budgeting personality. Somebody who maybe stays in hostels, 1-, 2-star hotels, doesn't really put a lot of costs down but wants to experience and travel a lot. And then there's the luxe. So polar opposite, somebody who goes out goes to beautiful, beautiful locations, stays in 5-star hotels or resorts and kind of had that idea in their head that they going to brag about it, maybe on Instagram.
Marc:
Maybe a cheeky Pinterest post.
Sally:
Which one would you say that you are Steph?
Stephanie:
So I am a combination of the saver, so I do actively save. I like knowing that I can afford my holiday. And I used to be a low cost. But these days, I'm closer to a luxe. I like my 4-, 5-star hotels.
Sally:
It's all for reviewing purposes Steph, it's fine. Just expense it.
Marc:
I think it's interesting as well, because like you could fall in different pockets these spectrums at different times in the same trip. Like for example, I recently went to Brazil, we luxed it when we're in the Amazon because we stayed at an awesome eco lodge, but then, you know, when we're in the town that's near the Amazon River, we stayed in like a really cheap place. And we just did fairly cheap things. Because we wanted to save the money for the other portions. I'm guessing that factors in as well.
Stephanie:
Yeah. So maybe you're only one of these personalities, but most likely you're a combination of a few. What are you Sally?
Sally:
I would say I'm the saver. And then I think I'm the same as Marc like kind of a mix. I don't think I can afford the luxe. So even if I wanted to, I would say that I plan my travel with a little bit of a budget in mind. But it's what I save for.
Marc:
Yeah. Do you have numbers, Steph, on for example, like what split on average people are between saving and borrowing?
Stephanie:
So for the borrower, that's about 17% of people who were surveyed with the correct survey, and that's a combination people who pay for their trip in instalments, as well as people who actively borrow money for their holiday. There are other splits outside of these four personality over 45%, these percentages aren't going to be 100 by the way, because you can take multiple boxes, hold back on spending. So that kind of gets bundled up into saving because you're consciously thinking about keeping money in your bank account so that you can spend it on your finances. And then there are other types of personalities that are much much smaller so people who do things like side hustling are getting a second job and save for the trip. And then there's also about 25% of people who say that they don't do anything special.
Marc:
Interesting just plough the money in and yeah, that's pretty much it got the money though book on Sunday.
Stephanie:
So they're not actively saving, but they know that they have the money or that they're comfortable with what they have that they didn't have to do anything extra.
Sally:
So it's that time of the episode where we're going to jump into our rapid fire overrated vs underrated segment.
Marc:
Juicy.
Sally:
So we'll give you a topic and then you can tell us if it's overrated or underrated. Okay, so let's kick it off with travel influencers, overrated or underrated?
Stephanie:
Overrated. I think I feel like the travel influencer market is becoming very over saturated. And I feel like there are certain people who think that they are influencers so when they really aren't.
Sally:
This is an intervention for you, Marc.
Stephanie:
It's definitely a big market. Don't get me wrong. Clearly we've talked about FOMO, we've talked about social media. So there are influencers that do push the mark, really do influence what we do what we buy, and I do follow quite a few influencers myself, but I think just the spectrum of where somebody considers themselves to be an influencer is a bit too wide.
Sally:
Most underrated cuisine?
Stephanie:
I do love a good dumpling. And I feel like we haven't really been talking about dumplings lately. Just in general, in social or in conversation.
Sally:
Dumplings are the unsung heroes of this world.
Marc:
Yeah. Travelling solo, underrated or overrated?
Stephanie:
Neither.
Sally:
Tell me pros and cons.
Stephanie:
If you're happy going solo, go for it. I've travelled solo and I've travelled with friends and I've travelled with a partner and I personally love love travelling solo, you get to choose where you go. You get to spend as much time sleeping, even if you want to, sometimes you want to wake up in the morning, right and your friends, if you're with a group, you have to wake up at the same time they do at least leave the accommodation, same time they do. You can make the most of your day as a solo traveller if you want to, or you can sleep in and tidy the night away. You can do whatever you want. Maybe it's more underrated than in that sense, where more people should be doing it because very it really is enjoyable. And even though I have a partner but I still love solo travelling.
Sally:
What about the most underrated airline?
Stephanie:
Emirates. So I've flown Emirates a few times to Europe, and they've always been really really good. I have never had any complaints for them very professional. And for such a luxury airline. They're actually very price competitive.
Marc:
And they have very good in-flight entertainment. They keep winning the awards for it
Stephanie:
I'm a bit often day with in-fight entertainment depends on whether I'm flying a night flight or not. If I'm flying a night flight, I don't tend to put the entertainment on because I just fall asleep straight away. I have the wonderful superpower of being able to fall asleep on any transport really, really quickly. The second we take off if it's at the right time, I will be out like a light.
Marc:
That is a very good score to have. Last one violins in rock music.
Stephanie:
Hey, that's not fair. You know who my favourite rock band is! Sally was this you?
Sally:
I mean look. This was actually Franko, our producer for our listeners out there. Violins and rock music, overrated or underrated, tell us?
Stephanie:
Underrated, of course.
Marc:
We'll add that to the show notes as well.
Stephanie:
So now the tables have turned since you guys have grilled me I'm going to grill you it's pop quiz.
Sally:
Oh no.
Stephanie:
So it's not opinionated. It's actually their actual answers. They're based on a Roy Morgan survey. Sally, Marc, where do you think internationally, Australians go the most?
Sally:
Indonesia
Marc:
Damn, I've seen a similar list and I think it's Indonesia as well. But I'm just gonna for the sake of difference I'm going to say New Zealand.
Stephanie:
Marc wins. To be fair, Indonesia, or Bali in particular is in the top five. The top five are New Zealand, England, the US, Bali and France.
Sally:
France! Oui oui.
Stephanie:
What about domestically guys?
Marc:
Gold Coast?
Sally:
Melbourne?
Stephanie:
Melbourne, Sydney number two though.
Sally:
I was gonna say sorry. But then I was like, why?
Stephanie:
Yeah. Considering how much of our population is in Sydney. You're thinking we're going to a destination so we've got Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, kind of close to the Gold Coast.
Sally:
Give him what he can get.
Stephanie:
Yeah, exactly. North Coast, New South Wales and Canberra.
Marc:
Oh, Canberra. Yeah. Either Questacon or government.
Stephanie:
Okay, so final question. This one is based on Expedia data. So what do you think are the top five travelling destinations for Australians this Christmas and summer period?
Sally:
I'm gonna say Indonesia again?
Marc:
Sorry, That's where you're wrong. I'm gonna go with Japan.
Stephanie:
Oh, okay. So no to Japan. Okay. But Indonesia? Yes.
Sally:
Indonesia not Bali though. Well, Bali but Canggu specifically. Okay, so that's one out of five. What are the other four?
Marc:
I'm going to say London just because it's always top of the lists for Australians.
Stephanie:
And it's not that popular for Christmas. You know that it's cold.
Sally:
White Christmas. I was gonna say New York. That would be my dream. Yeah.
Stephanie:
I feel like people are a little more realistic than travelling.
Sally:
A little more realistic.
Stephanie:
Let's shrink this globe a little bit.
Sally:
Okay. Whitsundays?
Sally:
Whitsundays, so Airlie beach.
Stephanie:
Oh, okay. So that's two. Here's a hint. The other three aren't in Australia.
Marc:
Fiji.
Stephanie:
Yes. Yes. So Yanuca island in Fiji. Alright, guys last guess, two left. Asian destinations.
Sally:
Thailand.
Stephanie:
No, Marc?
Marc:
Hong Kong, Singapore? What are they?
Stephanie:
So it's Boracai island in the Philippines and Langkawi in Malaysia.
Marc:
Wow. Thanks for that stuff. That was awesome. It showed just how little we know about travelling.
Sally:
So we've spoken a lot about the trends for travel spending. But we also want to know about you know, some of the trends that are happening right now in terms of the types of travel that people are interested in. So yeah, people like more interested in roughing it staying in hostels, you know, backpacking, or are they more interested in I guess, like the planned, potentially more expensive types of travel like going on Kentucky, if you're on your young personal going on cruises, or plan tours,
Stephanie:
A lot of people do travel with the intent to visit family and friends. So they're more likely to actually refer it. So first 3.5% of Australians say that when they do travel, they say with family on holiday, or with friends. And then another 17.9% say they stay in a standard hotel and motel. So even though there is obviously a love for the luxe, trending wise, most people are still keeping their money goes to their belts, and spending less on accommodation than they are on say other things like experiences, there's no grand trend toward cruise destinations, about 3.6% of people say that they do take cruises still very much a more senior type.
Sally:
Mature.
Stephanie:
Mature type crowd. Cruise lines are trying to bring in families and the younger clientele in and there's definitely more interest in it. But it's still not the most popular.
Marc:
What are your tips for making travel more affordable?
Stephanie:
So obviously finding those deals. Again, sales happen very frequently. Look to find it out, come to us travelled find all the best deals, I will let you in on all of my secrets. Also keeping an open mind on when you travel, seasonal travel, school holiday travel is always going to be more expensive. So if you're willing to bend, say one or two weeks before the school holidays, in get a pretty, pretty good deal and comparing your options as well. A lot of online travel agencies let you compare prices across different brands, different hotels, different booking sites, and that way you can get the best value for the travel that you want.
Marc:
As a side note, have you ever made use of a glitch fare? Maybe you could explain that?
Stephanie:
I have not made use of them? I've tried to that. Sometimes they catch them a little too early. And sometimes they do cancel them on you as well. So I have not made the most of them. But glitch fares are what happens when say data is input incorrectly. So something that might be maybe $900. Maybe they've accidentally skipped one zero. So when you're looking, it will look like it's $90. So that's a glitch fare. But unfortunately, I haven't made the most of any of those. Have you guys?
Sally:
No I wish.
Marc:
Yeah, I always look at them. Yeah.
Sally:
And what are some travel costs that you should never skimp on? So we've just spoken about a bunch of things that you know, you can look out for deals and whatnot. But is there anything that you're like no, like I will invest the money in in that like accommodation, or flights or insurance or something?
Stephanie:
I think mine would be accommodation these days, I've learned over the years cheap accommodation generally means that sometimes you're staying further away from all the attractions. And so you're wasting time on transport. And there is prices can add up to the cost of say, a mediocre stay in the middle of the city. So I'm right now prioritising a little bit more convenience, rather than past. So that's something that I'm not going to, and so much on, it's nicer to be able to not spend an hour on a train just to see something that I want to when I'm travelling.
Marc:
Yeah, that's a great point. So going back to Brazil, we had the chance of staying in the city, and then you would each day, catch a bus or boat to where you needed to go. And then you know, you may or may not get meals included. Or you can just stay where the action is, which might be more expensive. Although once you figure in like once you factor in tours and meals and all that it actually ends up being cheaper.
Sally:
Yeah, I feel like when you're travelling, things always take longer than you think they will as well. Like, I don't know, even if it's a half an hour or 45-minute train trip from where you think you'll be spending the majority of the time on your trip. It ends up taking longer. Definitely.
Stephanie:
Well, I think it's also because you're in somewhere that you're unfamiliar with, right? So it takes you longer to navigate, find out where you are, make sure you're on the right train or bus. And then once you get off again, you're in. I'm not quite sure where my orientation is. And so everything just slows down a little bit.
Sally:
Yeah, definitely. So spending a little bit more on on accommodation can definitely pay off in that instance, I think convenience always.
Marc:
Yeah. And I think travel insurance. Personally, I'm guessing we would all be in agreement is something you don't want to skimp out.
Stephanie:
Definitely make sure when I look at the travel insurance policy that I'm purchasing that it does cover all the activities that I'm doing, say if I'm renting a car, making sure that there's a good excess coverage on that, or if maybe I'm taking small cruise. So I've done many cruises and making sure that those are covered as well. Because those are options as well. And extreme sports, like skiing snowboarding, yeah, make sure you ask about this because some policies don't let you ski or snowboard on a standard insurance. It really depends on whether you're doing back country, but it also depends on the actual insurance.
Marc:
Well, that is awesome. Steph, any parting wisdom that you would give to our listeners knows that a good travel.
Stephanie:
Travel now. Travel's so affordable. Now, if you do have the time, if you do have the funds to do it, travel and it gets more and more expensive. The older you get. Insurance policies get more expensive the older you get. So if you do want to go somewhere and the price is right, you have the time and you have the funds. Why not?
Sally:
Let's book a flight now.
Marc:
Let's just point on the globe. Thank you so much for your time.
Stephanie:
Yeah. Thanks for having me.
Marc:
Thanks for listening to Pocket Money for Finder. Head over to finder.com.au/podcast for the show notes for this episode. The Finder podcast is intended to provide you with tips, tools and strategies that will help you make better decisions. Although we're licensed an authorised we don't provide financial advice. So please consider your own situation or get advice before making any decisions based on anything in our show. Thanks for listening.
