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The Surprising Destination of Choice for Millennials
31 Jan 2017
In a surprising turn of events, Australian millennials have nominated Tasmania as their favourite holiday destination in the country.
Yes, you read that right. According to a survey of almost 14,000 Gen Y individuals conducted by The Urban List, millennials are more interested in visiting Tasmania than they are Melbourne or Sydney – or anywhere else in Australia for that matter.
Maybe it’s the snow, maybe it’s the peace and quiet; who knows.
Melbourne was voted second, followed by Uluru, the Gold Coast, and Broome.
Happy #DiscoverTasmania Tuesday! Here are some of our favourite shots from this week in Tassie! See the full album: https://t.co/SNbrz0LH11 pic.twitter.com/g4JAaIZ2aH
— Discover Tasmania (@tasmania) January 30, 2017
Tourism Industry Council of Tasmania Chief Executive Luke Martin told News Corp the result proved how far the state’s tourism industry has progressed in recent years.
“If someone had said five years ago that Tasmania would be the favourite destination among 18-34-year-olds they would have been told to have a Bex and lie down,” Mr Martin said.
Mr Martin also said that research pointed to Tasmania’s popularity along “lifelong learner” travellers.
“These are not people who just arrive and drop on to a beach or stay at a resort and never leave, but they want to get out and explore and walk. They are really active holiday-makers and Tasmania has tapped into that market.”
Tasmania aside, what are our dream overseas spots?
On a more international note, The Urban List’s survey found that when it came to overseas destinations, New York was the destination that a majority of Australian millennials wanted to see.
However, the genders didn’t see completely eye to eye when it came to which cities were next on the list. Female respondents had Japan, Greece, and Paris in their sights, but male respondents would have preferred to visit Japan, Italy, Iceland, and Paris.
Why are we travelling?
The Urban List’s survey also delved into why exactly young people are travelling, and it turns out there’s quite a few potential reasons for any given millennial to go travelling. Some of the reasons given for wanting for travelling were:
- Great scenery – 33%
- Great food – 30%
- The culture – 30%
- To “live like a local” – 26%
- To “chill” – 23%
- The beach – 18%
- Action – 17%
- Adventure activities – 11%
- A big city – 4%
- Nightlife – 3%
- To shop – 3%
- To “meet cool people” – 2%
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0A9TNRgTkw
Source: The Urban List
Who are we travelling with?
When asked about who they wanted to travel with, just over half of respondents (53%) said they wanted to travel with their partners, 22% wanted to travel with friends, 16% wanted to go with family, and 9% preferred to travel solo.
Millennials bucking travel planning tradition
When it comes to travelling, conventional wisdom used to be that you would almost definitely have a chat with a travel agent before setting off. But these days it’s not the same, with a majority of millennials (76%) saying that they trusted their friends’ and family’s advice the most, with only 25% saying they got advice from travel agents.
The other area in which millennials are less traditional is their accommodation choices. Only 23% of respondents said they dealt directly with hotels, with the rest split between AirBnb (20%), Expedia (11%), Wotif (11%), and Hotels.com (11%).
However that being said, over half of respondents (54%) said that they’d prefer to stay in a boutique hotel, whereas only 8% wanted to stay in a backpacker hostel. (Can you blame the other 92%?) A further 40% preferred to stay in an AirBnB, and 19% opted to stay with friends and family.
