Australia is

competing for the Oz tourist $

The Pacific’s biggest competitor for the Australian tourist dollar is Australia itself.

Both the federal and state gov ernments are now putting an enormous amount of money, and energy, into diverting Aust ralians away from their tradition al overseas holidays and towards “visiting’’ their own country.

The combined tourism promo tion budget in Australia this year is about $l4 million. Fiji, biggest of the South Pacific operators, spends less than $1 million a year in Australia through its Fiji Visitors’ Bureau, and possibly about double that amount by the

individual efforts of airlines and tour and resort operators. What Australian airlines and destina tions spend on their own account over the state and federal govern ment spending is unknown, but must run into many more mill ions of dollars.

“Australians are only just learning to admire their own country,’’ said one Pacific pro moter. “In the old days most of them thought foreign places were much more inviting. Now it is beginning to change, because there is a very great deal to see in Australia. That realisation, and the rise of true national pride, as

NOUMEA . . . close to Australian mass tourist markets, different in culture and a rising force in the industry.

Australia competes

distinct from bull-chauvinism, are all contributing to the very vigorous competition we in the islands are now facing. We can not afford to miss a trick, nor lose an opportunity.”

The Australian figures for overseas travel remain impres sive, however. In 1982 a total of 1,286,908 Australians went overseas, 99 per cent of them by air. Of those 770,000 went on holiday and 29,000 for conven tions, which are essentially holi day-oriented in that most of them take place in resorts or hotels.

The 1983 figures may be somewhat less than this because of the effects of the recession and tighter personal budgets . . . but the difference is likely to be small.

These figures compare with the 1977 holiday total leaving Australia of 971,000.

The 1982 figure breaks down to show 386,000 Australians go ing into the Pacific, and 213,000

of those to New Zealand, giving the Pacific Islands a total of 173.000 visitors from Australia, the bulk of whom went to Fiji.

However, signs are that Aust ralian tastes in Pacific Islands

holidays are changing. New

Caledonia with a distance, and therefore a cost, advantage over Fiji and other islands, took 21.000 Australians last year, but this year expects around 35,000 and a steady growth over the next 10 years to a level of about 100,000. This, they believe, will be in response to their quite considerable investment in new hotels and facilities. Club Med, of course, is a major factor in these calculations.

“These days Australians don’t go to a particular place for a holiday,” said one travel agent specialising in the Pacific, “they go for SSOO worth of holiday, or SIOOO worth. Price counts very much, and Noumea has a very favorable exchange rate with the Australian dollar.”