Australia’s leading operator of short-term rental accommodation, Alloggio, has called for a greater focus on regional tourism destinations as inbound visitation numbers continue to lag behind pre-pandemic levels.
Alloggio founder and CEO, Will Creedon, said a team approach between operators and government was needed to ensure regional visitation levels did not flatten out after enjoying a solid run through the COVID period.
“At present, destinations within 2.15 hours of a capital city are trading very well and we have seen locations further out than that also doing well over Christmas however I sense a danger this could flatten out if we lose focus,’’ Mr Creedon said.
“We are seeing the normalised travel habits and patterns of pre 2019 returning in rural and regional Australia.
“It is important that a vacuum is not inadvertently formed by rediverting leisure and event travellers to our urban centres in the absence of inbound travellers to fill the void in these urban centres.
“It is great to see the big dollars being spent by government tourism bodies on the city locations, but let’s not forget about the regions.”
Mr Creedon also said more was needed to be done to address the difference between outbound and inbound numbers.
“Our outbound numbers are nearly back to pre-pandemic levels, perhaps 10-15% off where they were, while inbound numbers are still lagging by around 40%-50%,’’ he said.
“If this isn’t addressed, we may have two years of walking a tight rope balancing domestic travel spend across rural, regional and urban areas in the absence of inbound spent’’ he said.
Alloggio (Italian for accommodation) is a leading operator of short-term rental accommodation (STRA) in Australia.
Launched in 2015, Alloggio has developed its own scalable cloud-based technology platform to provide property management solutions for holiday properties and the management of hotels.
