Australian seachers look to holiday locally

Australians are increasingly looking to home to plan holidays as they cut back spending due to the global economic crisis.

The Gold Coast took out the number one place on this year's Yahoo!7 annual online search rankings for travel, with seven of the top 10 positions going to Aussie hotspots.

Queensland Tourism Minister Desley Boyle said it was a positive result amid concerns over consumer spending falling off due to the global economic crisis.

The Yahoo! report agreed with the minister's sentiments that hard financial times were evident.

"Travel specific searches for 2008 were clearly affected by the economic downturn,'' the report said.

"The Gold Coast was the top travel search, with the majority of the top 10 list mainly domestic travel locations.''

The popularity of online travel websites for research and purchase is also strong, with more than half of online Australians visiting Virgin Blue, Qantas and JetStar websites in the past 30 days, according to data monitors, Nielsen Online.

Despite harder financial times, airline ticket sales have soared from $1.2 billion to almost $2 billion in the September quarter, and accommodation spending rose from about $650 million to $900 million, Nielsen reported.

Yahoo!7 travel search rankings were:
1. Gold Coast
2. Noosa (Sunshine Coast)
3. Apollo Bay (on the Great Ocean Road)
4. Surfers Paradise
5. Melbourne
6. Alice Springs
7. Port Douglas
8. New Zealand
9. Vietnam
10. Europe

Source: Daily Telegraph