Australia’s most popular travel agents and the holiday-goers more (or less) likely to use them
Between July 2015 and June 2016, just over 13.7 million Australians 14+ took at least one holiday, the latest findings from Roy Morgan Research show. Of these Aussie holiday-goers, 7.3 million (52.8%) reported using a travel agent or tour operator for at least one of the trips they took – more than double the number (3.2 million) that didn’t use one at all. And the most popular travel agent? No prizes for guessing that Flight Centre has clinched top spot once again…
Some 12.6% of Australian holiday-goers used Flight Centre for at least one trip in the 12 months to June 2016, giving the chain a respectable lead over online accommodation service Booking.com (11.4%). Wotif.com was a distant third at 6.8%, ahead of Webjet (6.1%) and — in its first year of being measured in the Roy Morgan Holiday Tracker Survey — Airbnb (5.5%).
Ten travel agents/tour operators most used by Australian holiday-goers
Source: Roy Morgan Single Source (Australia), July 2015-June 2016, n=10,112. Base: Australians 14+ who took at least one holiday in last 12 months
Besides Flight Centre, the only travel agent with a bricks-and-mortar presence to crack the Top 10 was Helloworld, used by 2.8% of holiday-goers. The remaining eight are all exclusively online businesses. This is hardly surprising, given how dramatically the rise of digital technology has transformed the travel industry, but it does not tell the whole story.
Viewing Australian holiday-goers through the lens of Roy Morgan’s in-depth consumer profiling tool Helix Personas, it soon becomes apparent that booking a holiday is not a one-size-fits-all scenario.
Even Flight Centre – as popular as it is – is more likely to attract certain groups of travellers than others. For example, 22.5% of the Helix Persona known as Social Flyers used Flight Centre for at least one holiday in the 12 months to June 2016 – well above the national average and more than five times the proportion of Rural Traditionalists (4.0%), the Persona least likely to choose Flight Centre.
Australia’s five most popular travel agents and the Helix Personas most/least likely to use them
Source: Roy Morgan Single Source (Australia), July 2015-June 2016, n=10,112. Base: Australians 14+ who took at least one holiday in last 12 months
Frequently young, sociable and single, Social Flyers earn good wages but are not yet tied down by too many financial or family responsibilities. What better excuse to indulge their love of overseas travel? With the hectic schedule they keep, however, they may be too busy to organise all the finer details themselves. Just as well Flight Centre’s complete travel service (from flights to hotels, cruises to package deals) makes it so easy…
In contrast, Rural Traditionalists tend to be older, living in country areas and working hard in blue-collar jobs to pay off their mortgage before retirement. They generally stay in Australia for holidays, organising their budget getaway on the Virgin Australia Holidays website, Lastminute.com or Hotels.com rather than visiting a travel agent.
Meanwhile, Airbnb attracts an elevated proportion of people from the Big Future segment. Educated, cultured, switched on and usually coupled up, Big Future would find Airbnb appealing for the way it allows travellers to feel more like locals and less like tourists. They may have started a family, but they’re still hipsters at heart!
Norman Morris, Industry Communications Director, Roy Morgan Research, says:
“Although Roy Morgan data tells us which travel agents were most used by Aussie holiday-goers in the last 12 months, this is a top-level insight, and does not reveal which holiday-goers are more or less likely to use a particular agent – or, indeed, to use none at all.
“Of course, it’s no secret that the travel industry has been transformed by digital technology, with the rise of online agents, booking services and tourism operators being a logical outcome of this. For bricks-and-mortar travel agents, this has meant adapting to the changing market or risk losing relevance. Flight Centre’s continued popularity indicates it has done this effectively. The fact that it attracts a tech-savvy consumer segment such as Social Flyers also speaks volumes for the chain’s ability to anticipate and meet the needs of even those who’d be perfectly comfortable organising their own holiday online.
“By identifying exactly who is more or less likely to use a particular bricks-and-mortar travel agent or online booking site, Helix Personas enables tourism operators to target the travellers who will be most responsive to their brand, rather than going for a more generalised approach.”
For comments or more information please contact:
Roy Morgan - Enquiries
Office: +61 (03) 9224 5309
askroymorgan@roymorgan.com
Margin of Error
The margin of error to be allowed for in any estimate depends mainly on the number of interviews on which it is based. Margin of error gives indications of the likely range within which estimates would be 95% likely to fall, expressed as the number of percentage points above or below the actual estimate. Allowance for design effects (such as stratification and weighting) should be made as appropriate.
| Sample Size | Percentage Estimate |
| 40% – 60% | 25% or 75% | 10% or 90% | 5% or 95% | |
| 1,000 | ±3.0 | ±2.7 | ±1.9 | ±1.3 |
| 5,000 | ±1.4 | ±1.2 | ±0.8 | ±0.6 |
| 7,500 | ±1.1 | ±1.0 | ±0.7 | ±0.5 |
| 10,000 | ±1.0 | ±0.9 | ±0.6 | ±0.4 |
| 20,000 | ±0.7 | ±0.6 | ±0.4 | ±0.3 |
| 50,000 | ±0.4 | ±0.4 | ±0.3 | ±0.2 |
