The Council of Australian Tour Operators (CATO) recently invited tour operators, wholesalers and retail networks to a ground breaking event in Sydney, focused on the youth sector traveller market. Hosted by Singapore Airlines, attendees included high profile leaders from across the industry who were keen to understand the current status and travel trends around the youth sector, with a view to establishing some common goals to drive awareness and future growth.
“CATO was very pleased to be able to lead discussion on the status of the youth sector and thanked participants for their willing approach to work with CATO in promoting awareness and further opportunities,” said CATO Managing Director Brett Jardine, who opened the event with an in-depth assessment of data focused on Australians in the 18-35 year old demographic.
Drawing on Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) figures, Jardine confirmed that Australia’s youth sector is our most avid travellers when compared to all other age demographics. 1.75 million 18-35s went on an overseas holiday in 2018, spending an estimated 38.5 million days away from Australia and delivering a staggering market penetration of 35% within this age bracket.
Jardine also revealed South-east Asia is by far the most popular region for Australia’s 18-35 holiday makers and Indonesia is the most popular country as a primary destination.
Other presenters at the event included Sean Martin – General Manager of Student Flights and the Flight Centre Travel Groups Youth Touring; Katrina Barry – Managing Director at Contiki; Brett Mitchell, Regional Director at Intrepid; Daniel Thorne – Head of Sales for Top Deck APAC and Brendan Roberts – Global Head of Business Development at TourRadar.
The Travel Corporation CEO John Veitch attended the event and said “… it was great to come together as an industry to discuss how we further capture this sector of holidays, and ensure we continue to deliver the most amazing experiences for18-35-year-old travellers.”
